this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Organized labor is the biggest stick. If workers organize themselves based on an anarchist basis, they can potentially wield this stick very gracefully to ward off or even preclude the entities that would dominate and exploit them.
The end goal is basically the same as Marxism: a stateless, classless society. It's a fair question as to whether the anarchist route that forgoes an interim worker state is viable.
What if the workers disagree with each other? I've had the same question as OP for a long time with no answer.
So most of the time I talk to self proclaimed anarchist they're actually Anarcommunists which can be broadly described as "From each their ability, to each their need." If a conflict such as workers disagreeing arises, as it's been described to me, a representative community council would arbitrate the disagreement and everyone would see to it's enforcement. Personally I find it rather naive because it excludes resolving disputes between communities and focuses on incorporating communities together to settle disputes. Which is fine so long as the communities are willing to incorporate each other's welfare into their considerations.
At that point, it isn't anarchy as a "representative community council" with the power of enforcement is just another name for "state power".
Of course I don't think anarchy can truly exist in anything but hunter-gatherer societies either so it is a moot point.
Disagreements are bound to happen. Ideally, this hypothetical anarchist society would need to have a system in which to air grievances ethically and then a public forum to determine the viability of integrating the new idea or revising an old idea that folks find objectionable. Rooting out bad actors would be the challenge, not the good faith compromises required to get everyone on the same page.
If you think that all sounds like a lot of work for every single disagreement, I would counter that point by saying this hypothetical anarchist society isn't interested in creating wealth out of thin air, nuclear proliferation or the military industrial complex, or real estate scams.
Thanks for the response. A more focused question might be: how can an anarchist society reasonably resist authoritarianism? And doesn't the whole scheme rely on greed not being a fundamental component of humanity?
I'm not the smartest guy or the most well read or what have you, but the idea is basically that whenever someone becomes overtly greedy or authoritarian, the mutual benefits of co-operation kind of ensure that this is a non-issue. Everyone that's co-operating would simply choose not to co-operate with that person, or that organization, and then they end up not getting very far. Maybe if it turns violent, then the same thing happens, just in that everyone kind of mutually crushes the organization, or dissolves it, or what have you.
You know I think the point most people fire back with is that authoritarianism tends to be thought of as like, more effective, right, because they can "make the trains run on time", or some such nonsense, but I think they're just conflating this with the idea that authoritarianism is more effective in a crisis, which is partially why authoritarianism is constantly inventing crises to combat. The idea, basically, is that if you have a singular leader, you can pivot and accommodate things more easily, make judgement calls easier, and you gain a capacity for rapid response. This is, you know, questionable, things end up being more complicated in practice, and leaving everything to a singular point of failure is a pretty easy way to make a brittle system. At the same time, even were it completely true, it's still only true for the short term, that it's more effective for short term gains. Long term gains, mutual co-operation, is much more effective.
Basically, the refutation is that greed isn't really a fundamental component of humanity insomuch as it is a choice, and anarchism tends to think that greed is a pretty bad one. Not only for everyone but the greedy, but just generally, for mutual, long term gains. If you change the environment significantly enough that you can ensure this is more overwhelmingly the case at the macro scale, then you've kind of "won" anarchism, in a sense, you've won the game.
As members of the same class, workers interests should be more or less aligned and disagreements should be mostly minor. Differences can be settled by compromise or people can withdraw from the organization if not.
Huh? Organized labor can only exist when laws protect them. Otherwise companies will always find scabs, and eventually, willing long term workers.
If organized labor is the law, then they are government all over again.
Not saying positing labor as a governmental body is a bad idea.
For most of the history of capitalism, and in many cases still to this day, organized labor and various labor actions have been illegal, but it still happens.
True, but what organized labor does exist is supported by, and validated by government.
No. Organized labor exists in spite of the government. For example, in the US, sympathy strikes are illegal. Many jurisdictions have so called right-to-work laws which weaken unions. A union is its members, not the laws to which it's subjugated.
Lol sure. Any examples of organized labor existing in the absence of government, where that group themselves does not become the enforcing, power projecting government?
What you're describing are the symptoms of imperfect government.
The absence of government is a power vacuum that will be filled. Things like labor organization require structure, and if they have to do not have it, if they persist, they become government. (Enforcement, power projection, etc.)
What are laws other than agreed upon tenets to live one's life by? We write them down and have a big grandiose way of announcing new legislation currently, all anarchists would do is make sure that those are baked into the social contract. Anarchists and Marxists would be the first group of people to enshrine worker protections into their society.
My point is that a governmental body, an enforcer of the social contract (whatever social contract the group wants) is required. I.e. someone with a stick.