My thoughts: It's fairly obvious now that "Bigger is Always Better" is wrong. It would have seemed more convincing 100 years ago. Bigger is sometimes better. Small-scale production has some advantages. (Do I need to state them? I'll leave it to the reader as an exercise.)
If Big Communism and Small Anarchism both have their uses in their contexts, some sort of dual-track economy is needed, two parallel ways of organising the means of production.
The eastern bloc had some small private enterprises throughout. The example i can remember is some furniture shops that turned out pieces that weren't practical for mass production. Without planned obsolescence and profit motive there's a lot of room for small shop production to handle bespoke items - furniture, clothing, shoes, some kinds of tools, various kitchen stuff. And then large scale mass production handles medication, heavy machinery, lots of other things. At a certain point you don't need the efficiency of highly integrated mass production as much. You can make shoes that will last for decades with proper care. Clothing can be made bespoke and both more durable and more repairable. You can ease back on efficiency bc you don't need to save every possible penny by cheaping out on materials and construction quality.
Leaning heavily on mass production to get everyone up to an appropriate standard of living makes sense when you're going through transitional socialism, but as things stabilize there's a lot of places where small shop manufacture and cottage industry become appealing.
When at war or under siege, I think Lenin's thought is completely right. You need coordination of the means of production towards the war effort, especially heavy industry. It's not like mom and pop oil refineries are a thing anyway, so I don't think that the usual exceptions you'd make in favor of community-owned businesses apply. But for light industries? Yeah, sure, we can talk about it.
I think the practical history of socialist economies has made it clear that there needs to be flexibility in the organization and modes of production depending on the sector. So yeah, a mix of federalized industries, ones with regional/communal control, and worker cooperatives/individual artisans at the smallest level.
The hexbear rules against sectarian posts or comments will be strictly enforced here.
effectively shuts down a useful discussion of this, because any comment perceived as too critical will risk a ban
I don't think it shuts it down at all, as long as the comments a critical of specifics and done in a constructive manner (e.g. not infantilizing of either side or dismissive of one another).
The anti-sectarianism rules here are much more directed at posts calling each other "anarkiddies" or "authoritarian tankies" type slapfights.
thanks, I should actually read the rules. I'm probably a little overly paranoid but I shouldn't transfer bad experiences with :reddit-logo: here
Something to consider: is Lenin even right here?
Could planned production include small runs, and anarchy include big production runs? Maybe anarchy=small and communism=big is not right.
tbh i think it's more difficult to make blanket statements about anarchists than about marxists. i would tend to agree wiht you, anarchism tends to promote a different kind of organisation but it can be as small or as big as needed in principle. the second part of the quote is the more common divide where anarchists tend to want to smash the state immediately versus marxists.
unless you are an enlighted anarchomarxist
