Now that we’ve successfully increased the factionalism of the board by splitting from the tankies, the logical next step is to start arguing with ourselves. Possible topics include:

  • Should personal property, as opposed to private property, rights continue to be respected? Is there any meaningful distinction between the two categories?
  • Would volunteerism be enough to meet everyone’s needs, or is it okay to compel work sometimes?
  • Are anprims even real?

Or another better topic idk I’m just a lib who loves internet fights

  • krothotkin [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    4 years ago

    I like the idea of incentive systems to encourage cooperation. Like you said, some jobs are very necessary but unpleasant enough that absent an incentive they might not get done. I also think some sort of market system for luxury goods could be a good way to handle this issue.

    I'll admit I worry about the personal property rights stuff. On the one hand, you ought to be able to lay claim to some things as your own and have a reasonable expectation of keeping them. On the other, the ultimate guarantor of property rights is violence. As you mentioned, if someone is refusing to leave your house, then the only way to remove him might be some sort of community effort to physically extract him. How and in what way these community rights-protecting institutions would be maintained and made accountable in an anarchist society is something I haven't really wrapped my head around.

    • Owl [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      Nice username.

      Power is unavoidable, and inherently abusable. Narrowly defined institutions help, but any institution is going to try to grow its power. My best thought for how to prevent that is to make sure there's already another narrowly defined institution in charge of each of the natural directions for an institution to grow its power in. I don't know the best way to split up rights-protecting institutions, but since they have to employ violence they should be particularly finely chopped.

      edit: Oh also it's important that the sort of situation where this is needed are very rare. Capitalism needs constant force to uphold private property laws that are actively preventing people from being able to live comfortably. But someone wanting to come steal your toothbrush is really weird. It'll happen (there are a lot of people, everything happens), but the scope of whatever system fixes it is limited, because it's a strange edge case of society. (And it's probably like... people who forcibly get someone to go home and then go fetch them a mental health expert.)