Who is “we” in this situation? Is it a post revolution United States? Is it a hypothetical island? Is this anarcho-syndicist, mutualist, collectivist, etc? There’s more than one school of thought for anarchism
Why are we negotiating money in a moneyless society?
Focusing on the wrong thing. It doesn’t matter what it is, or even who you’re trying to get it from, the point is that you need something another group of people has. How are you going to get it?
Everybody in your town is just going to leave their homes and walk to the nearest town together; or are you going to send a representative to that town to negotiate trade for you?
It doesn’t matter what it is, or even who you’re trying to get it from, the point is that you need something another group of people has
It very much does matter. Not all anarchist societies are going to work the same way. How you give and receive will therefore change based on the type of society. I encourage you to look into the different types of anarchy, both in practice and theoretical:
In this hypothetical question, to what degree does industrialization exist? Is personal property a thing? Surely you understand that private property wouldn’t exist. Do people organize as workers, neighbors, or both? Who owns what? Do states exist, or is this a global revolution?
There is so much that you have left out that is vital to an earnest answer. How are you going to expect an answer when you’ve given so little information?
Everybody in your town is just going to leave their homes and walk to the nearest town together; or are you going to send a representative to that town to negotiate trade for you?
So there is two incorrect assumptions about what you’re saying here.
The first is that trade must be negotiated, the second is that communication must be done in person.
There is such a thing as mutual aid, a gift economy, and with mutualism/collectivisim, there is no expectation of a return. You do what you can to help out your fellow man. You take what you need, and give what you can. Resources are distributed freely. Most models of anarchism both in practice and theoretical follow this pattern, or something close to it. So there is no “price” to be negotiated, that idea is nonsense in most anarchist schools of thought.
There has been this recent development called mail, in which we write things down on pieces of paper, and send them off to someone else to read. This is a form of communication that does not require in person communication, or representatives. Additionally, you may have heard of an even more recent development called the internet. With this fantastic invention you can communicate to people anywhere in the world in less than a few seconds, again making the need for in person representation non-existent.
Uh oh, your understanding is thousands of years out of date.
I wrote out this big thing to try to explain all of the problems with that link you gave me but honestly, the short answer, is that you just don’t know what you’re talking about
Not in “Anarchy is best”, I mean, in general, about most things, most of the time.
It’s not an insult, it’s true for all of us.
I’m a pretty good programmer but I’d make a real shitty brain surgeon. I’m bad at farming. I don’t know anything about cars, etc…
So collectively, as a group, we can’t vote on these things.
Not only can you not constantly ask a society to collectively vote on every decision (simply because you would just spend your entire day voting on a million things and never actually doing anything), but you can’t vote because you don’t know enough about most of the topics to make any kind of actual decision
And he kind of touches on this but at the end of the day he’s like, “trust the experts”
But experts don’t always agree and all they can do is tell you what they think is best and then you have to choose between the options they give you but some of you will know more than others about the subject (not enough to be an expert but also more than your neighbor) and your society will roughly be split among the choices… and that’s assuming this is one of the things they let you vote on. Again, you can’t vote on everything, you’d be so busy voting you couldn’t get any work done. So most of the time the experts make decisions for you and the rest of the time you have to choose between only the options the experts give you and half the people voting are going to be moronic on the subject
Any of this starting to sound familiar?
He tries to get around this by saying that these people don’t have any real power because today we’re voting on options for a road given to us by engineers and tomorrow it’s options given to us by Doctors, but this ignores that situations are usually not that clear cut and even they were, while that may very well be a better system of government, it’s still a system of government
You wake up one day and the doctors held a vote without you (because you don’t have time to vote on everything) that says sugary drinks are bad and you can’t have them any more. The city planners got with the doctors and decided to tear down three houses and put a road there because it’s better for emergency vehicles and the anthropologists voted without you that it would be best if there were cameras on every street corner
the short answer, is that you just don’t know what you’re talking about
Not in “Anarchy is best”, I mean, in general, about most things, most of the time.
It’s not an insult, it’s true for all of us.
I’m a pretty good programmer but I’d make a real shitty brain surgeon. I’m bad at farming. I don’t know anything about cars, etc…
I understand you’re coming at this from a “it’s impossible to be a jack of all trades” approach, but I’m not saying you need to be. I’m decent at programming as well, and I don’t know shit about medicine.
But that doesn’t stop me from recognizing and saying “Hey, the hospital has had a 50% jump in visitors, and an accompanying series of delays in service. Hey doctors, what do you need to get things improved? Do you need more staff, more supplies, more room, etc?”
I can still understand the material needs of a given field of work even if I don’t understand the mechanics of that field of work.
So collectively, as a group, we can’t vote on these things.
Not only can you not constantly ask a society to collectively vote on every decision (simply because you would just spend your entire day voting on a million things and never actually doing anything), but you can’t vote because you don’t know enough about most of the topics to make any kind of actual decision
This is a strawman. I have not stated that every single decision should be voted on by the entire community. I didn’t even mention voting in the first place, that was a separate user.
But this is why I asked (still unanswered) questions about how society is structured in this question of yours.
In a gift economy, there is no negotiation. If community A asks community B for some resource, and community B can spare it, then community B gives that resource.
In a syndicalist implementation, if you need lumber and there is a logging syndicate in the next town over, you ask that syndicate for lumber. Maybe they say they’re backlogged and you need to wait, maybe they say they need you to add to their manpower.
In mutual aid, somebody asks the community for help with food on their table. If you have food to spare, you give what you can spare.
There is a lot of nuance that can go on within anarchism, nuance that even I don’t have expertise on. But you seem to have little to no understanding of any of it. Hence why I suggested reading that book “Anarchy Works”.
It would also help your understanding if you did some reading on real life implementations from the past, such as Revolutionary Catalonia, the Zapatisas, the Seattle 1919 general strike. “Anarchy Works” goes into more real life implementations that just these three, again making it a worthwhile read.
If you want something more self contained and focused, the science fiction book “The Dispossessed” by Ursula K. Le Guin is a great option. It evaluates these questions you have without getting too bogged down in details about other related concepts.
I can’t vote on which material we use to build a road with because I don’t know anything about building roads. Those that do might not agree. They can try to explain to me which material is best out of their options but I’m still making a very uneducated guess because I can’t learn about road engineering in a single afternoon.
If the community doesn’t feel it has the right level of understanding to make such a decision, then the decision can be postponed until people have had more time to look into it and have a better informed opinion. You don’t necessarily have to learn in a single afternoon.
But building the road requires materials and the economists say no because that material would be better off if we gave it to our neighbors who need it for a bridge because in spring they grow really good apples and we’ll want to ask them for apples and they’ll be more likely to give us more apples in spring if we help them today
What you are describing sounds like a pretty big decision for the community. And that’s the exact type of decision that the community should make as a group.
And you are treating this way too black and white. It is in fact possible for communities to come to compromise. Let’s say our community has 10 tons of gravel on hand. About a third of the community wants to spend it on local roads, another third of the community thinks it best to give it to the next town over for their bridge, a tenth thinks it best to hold onto for the winter, and the remainder is undecided or somewhere in-between.
The community can compromise, such a compromise could for example be:
5 tons saved on hand for emergencies
2.5 tons given to the next town over so they can make concrete for their bridge
2.5 tons for local roads
Going back to the jack of all trades thing, I don’t have a fucking clue pouring and shaping concrete. I understand even less about the chemistry that goes into it. But I can understand that gravel is a component of the recipe, and therefore the wider value of the gravel. I see concrete in my daily life, so I can understand the wider value of concrete. Yet I am not a civil engineer of any kind, I am a programmer.
And the accountants say we shouldn’t waste what little materials we have on building roads or helping our neighbors and that we should save it because winter is harsh and we might need those materials for general repairs
Accountants implies money, and again, most forms of anarchism don’t include anything that looks like money. So the very idea of accountants is rather silly in this context. And you seem to be treating the deciding group as a monolith. If a subset of the group, especially a large subset disagrees they are free to work on their own to collect material for the bridge in the town over.
So in the end your representatives have to make the choice for you and you wake up to find out that they all talked it over and they’re going to tear down these 4 houses and put a road there because it’s good for the city and better for the accountants and also the doctors decided sugary drinks are bad for you so you can’t have them anymore and the safety people think it would be good to put up cameras on every corner
That’s government
I understand that it is hard to see outside of the current system of states and capitalism. Feudalism was just the same. Monarchy was the same.
If the American revolution had failed, and the U.S. were under British rule, you might be here saying “Well how are we going to unite as a country if not for a king? We would just have to appoint some leader and there you go we are back to monarchy”
actually a good question. From my understanding it’s the wronged party and they present it to their local community. Or you advocate for people who are being overlooked.
The model is for smaller communities so that if justice is done poorly then people interjecting can correct it
You do not need an authority figure to organise stuff. We use the consensus model for decision making.
Scope out this dude’s comments. He won’t be reading any of that
welp, i tried 🤷
I never blame anyone for opening up to others in good faith. You’re part of why this site doesn’t suck
who decides if there is an issue and who presents it to who?
Anyone can bring up a issue forward to the group
how?
We need to renegotiate prices on lithium with China. How do I do that?
Who is “we” in this situation? Is it a post revolution United States? Is it a hypothetical island? Is this anarcho-syndicist, mutualist, collectivist, etc? There’s more than one school of thought for anarchism
Why are we negotiating money in a moneyless society?
Focusing on the wrong thing. It doesn’t matter what it is, or even who you’re trying to get it from, the point is that you need something another group of people has. How are you going to get it?
Everybody in your town is just going to leave their homes and walk to the nearest town together; or are you going to send a representative to that town to negotiate trade for you?
How are you going to decide who represents you?
Uh oh, you’ve just reinvented government
It very much does matter. Not all anarchist societies are going to work the same way. How you give and receive will therefore change based on the type of society. I encourage you to look into the different types of anarchy, both in practice and theoretical:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works
In this hypothetical question, to what degree does industrialization exist? Is personal property a thing? Surely you understand that private property wouldn’t exist. Do people organize as workers, neighbors, or both? Who owns what? Do states exist, or is this a global revolution?
There is so much that you have left out that is vital to an earnest answer. How are you going to expect an answer when you’ve given so little information?
So there is two incorrect assumptions about what you’re saying here.
The first is that trade must be negotiated, the second is that communication must be done in person.
There is such a thing as mutual aid, a gift economy, and with mutualism/collectivisim, there is no expectation of a return. You do what you can to help out your fellow man. You take what you need, and give what you can. Resources are distributed freely. Most models of anarchism both in practice and theoretical follow this pattern, or something close to it. So there is no “price” to be negotiated, that idea is nonsense in most anarchist schools of thought.
There has been this recent development called mail, in which we write things down on pieces of paper, and send them off to someone else to read. This is a form of communication that does not require in person communication, or representatives. Additionally, you may have heard of an even more recent development called the internet. With this fantastic invention you can communicate to people anywhere in the world in less than a few seconds, again making the need for in person representation non-existent.
Uh oh, your understanding is thousands of years out of date.
I wrote out this big thing to try to explain all of the problems with that link you gave me but honestly, the short answer, is that you just don’t know what you’re talking about
Not in “Anarchy is best”, I mean, in general, about most things, most of the time.
It’s not an insult, it’s true for all of us.
I’m a pretty good programmer but I’d make a real shitty brain surgeon. I’m bad at farming. I don’t know anything about cars, etc…
So collectively, as a group, we can’t vote on these things.
Not only can you not constantly ask a society to collectively vote on every decision (simply because you would just spend your entire day voting on a million things and never actually doing anything), but you can’t vote because you don’t know enough about most of the topics to make any kind of actual decision
And he kind of touches on this but at the end of the day he’s like, “trust the experts”
But experts don’t always agree and all they can do is tell you what they think is best and then you have to choose between the options they give you but some of you will know more than others about the subject (not enough to be an expert but also more than your neighbor) and your society will roughly be split among the choices… and that’s assuming this is one of the things they let you vote on. Again, you can’t vote on everything, you’d be so busy voting you couldn’t get any work done. So most of the time the experts make decisions for you and the rest of the time you have to choose between only the options the experts give you and half the people voting are going to be moronic on the subject
Any of this starting to sound familiar?
He tries to get around this by saying that these people don’t have any real power because today we’re voting on options for a road given to us by engineers and tomorrow it’s options given to us by Doctors, but this ignores that situations are usually not that clear cut and even they were, while that may very well be a better system of government, it’s still a system of government
You wake up one day and the doctors held a vote without you (because you don’t have time to vote on everything) that says sugary drinks are bad and you can’t have them any more. The city planners got with the doctors and decided to tear down three houses and put a road there because it’s better for emergency vehicles and the anthropologists voted without you that it would be best if there were cameras on every street corner
I understand you’re coming at this from a “it’s impossible to be a jack of all trades” approach, but I’m not saying you need to be. I’m decent at programming as well, and I don’t know shit about medicine.
But that doesn’t stop me from recognizing and saying “Hey, the hospital has had a 50% jump in visitors, and an accompanying series of delays in service. Hey doctors, what do you need to get things improved? Do you need more staff, more supplies, more room, etc?”
I can still understand the material needs of a given field of work even if I don’t understand the mechanics of that field of work.
This is a strawman. I have not stated that every single decision should be voted on by the entire community. I didn’t even mention voting in the first place, that was a separate user.
But this is why I asked (still unanswered) questions about how society is structured in this question of yours.
In a gift economy, there is no negotiation. If community A asks community B for some resource, and community B can spare it, then community B gives that resource.
In a syndicalist implementation, if you need lumber and there is a logging syndicate in the next town over, you ask that syndicate for lumber. Maybe they say they’re backlogged and you need to wait, maybe they say they need you to add to their manpower.
In mutual aid, somebody asks the community for help with food on their table. If you have food to spare, you give what you can spare.
There is a lot of nuance that can go on within anarchism, nuance that even I don’t have expertise on. But you seem to have little to no understanding of any of it. Hence why I suggested reading that book “Anarchy Works”.
It would also help your understanding if you did some reading on real life implementations from the past, such as Revolutionary Catalonia, the Zapatisas, the Seattle 1919 general strike. “Anarchy Works” goes into more real life implementations that just these three, again making it a worthwhile read.
If you want something more self contained and focused, the science fiction book “The Dispossessed” by Ursula K. Le Guin is a great option. It evaluates these questions you have without getting too bogged down in details about other related concepts.
If the community doesn’t feel it has the right level of understanding to make such a decision, then the decision can be postponed until people have had more time to look into it and have a better informed opinion. You don’t necessarily have to learn in a single afternoon.
What you are describing sounds like a pretty big decision for the community. And that’s the exact type of decision that the community should make as a group.
And you are treating this way too black and white. It is in fact possible for communities to come to compromise. Let’s say our community has 10 tons of gravel on hand. About a third of the community wants to spend it on local roads, another third of the community thinks it best to give it to the next town over for their bridge, a tenth thinks it best to hold onto for the winter, and the remainder is undecided or somewhere in-between.
The community can compromise, such a compromise could for example be:
Going back to the jack of all trades thing, I don’t have a fucking clue pouring and shaping concrete. I understand even less about the chemistry that goes into it. But I can understand that gravel is a component of the recipe, and therefore the wider value of the gravel. I see concrete in my daily life, so I can understand the wider value of concrete. Yet I am not a civil engineer of any kind, I am a programmer.
Accountants implies money, and again, most forms of anarchism don’t include anything that looks like money. So the very idea of accountants is rather silly in this context. And you seem to be treating the deciding group as a monolith. If a subset of the group, especially a large subset disagrees they are free to work on their own to collect material for the bridge in the town over.
I understand that it is hard to see outside of the current system of states and capitalism. Feudalism was just the same. Monarchy was the same.
If the American revolution had failed, and the U.S. were under British rule, you might be here saying “Well how are we going to unite as a country if not for a king? We would just have to appoint some leader and there you go we are back to monarchy”
A different world is possible.
I dunno, am not an economist 🤷
sounds like you need an economist to represent you
How are you going to choose which economist represents you?
Trough consensus based direct democracy.
Roshambo? As effective as any economist living
Jewish Rambo?
j/k
↑↑↑
actually a good question. From my understanding it’s the wronged party and they present it to their local community. Or you advocate for people who are being overlooked.
The model is for smaller communities so that if justice is done poorly then people interjecting can correct it
And whose the guy put all these rules and systems in place?
The collective will decide how to run things
Can you point to 1 example of this working?
This is how we organized for most of our existence
So you don’t have evidence, ok just double checking.
https://aeon.co/essays/for-97-of-human-history-equality-was-the-norm-what-happened
This is an opinion piece, no citations.