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Libertarian communism
- tragic 11y agoWell, I never thought I'd see the day libcom was posted up on here. I spend a bit of time on their forums about 10 years ago - used to be a bit of a bearpit, don't know what it's like now. The archive is interesting, though. A lot of material from outside what you'd strictly call libertarian communism, but just niche even within the already niche worlds of anarchist/Marxist/etc theory. (Thought I'd better post something before it gets flagged to the bottom of the ocean.)
- Synaesthesia 11y agoFor a great and concise introduction to Libertarian Socialism here is a classic Noam Chomsky lecture from 1979 called The Government of the Future, in which he gives a justification for Libertarian Socialism, or Anarchism, as the natural and correct form of government for advanced industrial society from the classical liberal ideals of the enlightenment. He also compares the competing economic and social ideologies, laissez-faires capitalism, state capitalism and state socialism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLDQGdKyh7s&index=1&list=PLECDCA6E60C087344 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLDQGdKyh7s&index=1&list=PLE... Edit: here is the text of the lecture if you'd rather read it. https://libcom.org/library/government-future-noam-chomsky https://libcom.org/library/government-future-noam-chomsky
- PlzSnow 11y agoThanks for the link! Do you have a similar great and concise introduction to Nazism or other related extremist totalitarian ideologies?
- Synaesthesia 11y agoWell one of the best is Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism". Also worth looking at the concept of inverted totalitarianism, by Sheldon Wolin.
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- pastProlog 11y agoHow is anarchism a "totalitarian" ideology? I have been reading in the press about how the NSA, the CIA, the FBI etc. want an encryption backdoor in everything Americans use, so we can be spied on at will. I don't see why this isn't totalitarian and somehow anarchism is. Anarchism means no state, whereas totalitarianism means total state control, yet you're saying no state control means more state control. It makes no sense.
- xlm1717 11y agoI don't think the intention was to link them together, just to ask for introductions to other alternative ideologies. It's not good to put words into other people's mouth. PlzSnow never said anything about less state control meaning more state control, for example.
- nateabele 11y ago> "Those of us with nothing to sell but our labour power" This is the weirdest thing about the dichotomy of Communism's popular resurgence in tech circles. In literal terms, our 'labour power' is fingers on a keyboard. Doesn't the real value in our work come from our ideas? Technology is a lever for ideas, and that lever can be exploited by creativity in a way that few other areas of human endeavor can match. So, if the value (benefit? effectiveness?) of our work is measured by our ability to be creative, how does one reconcile that with pure labour valuation, which is evocative of the standard-dollars-for-hours exchange? I'd be interested to hear from any self-professed communists about this.
- noblethrasher 11y agoNot a communist, but having ideas isn’t labor, execution of ideas is. In the context of creativity, labor is the long process of rejecting all of the bad ideas before you get to the good one. Also, part of the thesis of the labor movement was that workers should be compensated for producing value, not for working “hard”. Briefly, this means that wages don't have to decline as advances in technology make life easier. The modern tech industry is weird because the laborers build the machines that they use (where “machine” means things like algorithms, not laptops).
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- leg100 11y agoI'd argue, in this regard, there is nothing qualitatively different about being an IT worker compared to any other occupation or any other time under capitalism. Marx never considered labour power to be a purely physical act. Otherwise technology alone would be a source of value, too. Of course, we are the only source of value because of our innate creativity, our ideas; our hands or interaction with others, merely sets it in motion.
- mseebach 11y agoThe qualitative difference is that today it is trivial for a "knowledge worker" (which includes a software developer) to control his or her own means of production (basically a laptop and an internet connection). In Marx' time, the means of production was a factory or large areas of arable land, and those weren't, and generally still aren't, possible for individual workers to own. This situation gave the owners of those means (capitalists) undue negotiating power over the workers -- hence collective ownership of the means of production by the owners. In the first paragraph, I'm purposefully steering clear of the word "own" since there are grey areas, what with binary driver blobs on the computer, and especially the fact that you never meaningfully "own" your internet connection and many of the services you rely on. Yet I would argue that this is a very (quantitatively) different situation from the worker/capitalist class struggle of Marx' time.
- vegancap 11y agoNot entirely sure why libcom's the top of HN. They've been posting the same misrepresentations and misunderstandings of markets for years.
- pastProlog 11y agoWho is misrepresenting? In 1962, the USSR had markets where people exchanged rubles for potatos, just as in the 1962 USA, there were markets where people exchanged dollars for currency. Not much difference marketwise, other than the currency.
- PlzSnow 11y agoThe communist ideology resulted in the torture/execution/starvation of, what, 100 million working-class people? People don't go about saying "I'm a fascist, let's give it another go, maybe it will work this time, sorry about the millions of dead children". So why do people think it's OK to say they're a communist?
- notNow 11y agoI think that you should differentiate between state communism or statism in general and Anarcho-Marxism or Marxism in general
- TomGullen 11y agoHow many people have died under capitalism?
- hga 11y agoEverybody eventually dies under all these systems. How many people were executed by organs of the state, including prematurely dying in forced labor camps, is a much more relevant metric.
- TomGullen 11y ago> including prematurely dying in forced labor camps, is a much more relevant metric No, it's a metric that perfectly reinforces the argument if that's the only metric you cherry pick and insist people use.
- TomGullen 11y agoLibertarianism is hugely flawed. Garbage in, garbage out. I don't think anything incorporating hugely flawed philosophies is ever going to be a good idea.
- Synaesthesia 11y agoThis definition of Libertarianism should not be confused with what is called Libertarianism in the USA.
- notNow 11y agoI have read the whole thing and I was really surprised that they didn't mention anything about individualism or non-authoritarian decentralized governance given the "libertarian" label in their name and unless I'm mistaken, they sound more collectivist-leaning than individualist-leaning and this is very troubling esp. for communists as they tend historically to favor heavy-handed measures to reach or realize their political goals even if it means to oppress and intimidate their opponents. BTW: I'm a leftie myself but very skeptical of collectivists and statists whether on the right or the left.
- erikdstock 11y agoAs others have said the term 'libertarian' has historically and outside the USA had much more 'collectivist' connotations and early on bore much more resemblance to anarchist and communist movements- it recognized that controlling property and capital (or having it kept from you) was a factor in your individual liberty, could be used to force you to work, etc. libertarian communist is to put it crassly an attempt to re-brand and re-merge the anarchist and socialist traditions (which are much more diverse than mao and stalin) and to remove the supposed schizm between libertarianism and communism. not to propose any single template but to stop taking for granted the current social/political/economic orders and explore new ways of organizing society, etc.
- zoner 11y agoThe two worst thing ever happened to earth in one ideology. Congratulations!
- arethuza 11y agoOut of interest, what two worst things are you referring to?
- vidarh 11y agoHe is conflating right wing libertarianism with the libertarianism referred to, and stalinism/leninism with the communism referred to.
- Synaesthesia 11y agoTo be clear this libertarianism has nothing to do with libertarianism as it's called in the USA, which essentially is an extreme protector of individual property rights.
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- trengrj 11y agoAfter reading the page it looks like a lot of communism and very little libertarianism.. Why is libertarianism mentioned? To me libertarianism requires at least giving people the freedom to buy and sell while this libcom site argues "the problem is that everything has a price". Are we going to have to start using the words "classical libertarianism" soon? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism#Meaning_of_the_term https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism#Meaning...
- Synaesthesia 11y agoThis definition of Libertarianism should not be confused with what is called Libertarianism in the USA, which is an extreme protector of individual property rights. It is confusing because this definition arose originally in Europe and understood to be a form of socialism, not at all like the American definition.
- vidarh 11y agoClassical libertarianism is libertarian communism. The term libertarianism originates with the French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacques back in the 19th century, and was championed by groups like the Socialist League in the UK (which was supported by Friedrich Engels and Eleanor Marx amongst others). Modern-day right-wing libertarianism is the new kid on the block. Basically in the late 1800's the main split between anarchists and communists in the First International was not predominantly their end goal. E.g. consider the famous concept of the "whithering away of the state" (coined by Friedrich Engels, but Engels attributed the idea to Marx): that given that according to Marxism the state is predominantly a tool of class rule, and that communism by their definition is the stage of society where there no longer are any classes, the state will cease to have a political purpose and will "whither away". So anarchists and communists agreed the state was a tool of oppression and that this oppression must be removed, and that the state will eventually disappear. The split was over methods. How to get there. The anarchists generally favoured a quicker, more immediate, dismantling of the state (whether by taking control and orderly dismantling it, or by rising up and destroying it), while communists generally favoured an intermediate transitional stage. In Marxism the intermediate stage is socialism: A phase where the proletariat is meant to take control of the state (hence the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in contrast with Marx description of capitalist democracies as the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"), and for the first time wield it as a weapon of the majority against the minority, and use it to remove the class differences. So communists traditionally saw the state as a tool for the working class. Eventually this lead to the split of the First International, where Marx came out victorious, and most of the anarchists left when Bakunin was thrown out. Not long after, new libertarian socialist/communist tendencies started "filling the gap" in the International left by the anarchists. The extent of support for a strong state varied greatly amongst people who called themselves communists, leading to screeds like Lenins "Left Communism: An Infantile Disorder", which targeted exactly libertarian Communists which opposed his ideas of a vanguard.
- jevgeni 11y agoWhy is this drivel on top of HN?
- humanrebar 11y ago> The problem is that everything has a price. No, the problem is that everything has a relative value and someone needs to figure out what that value is. In free-market capitalist societies (and I'd argue in the other ones as well), money serves as an important heuristic for value. More concretely, do we, as a society, produce more fuel efficient cars or do we produce electric ones? In a free market, it's clear the one that sells will be produced. In a controlled economy, the process is murkier and runs through bureaucracies (and therefore lobbyists) and possibly lawmakers (and therefore more lobbyists). So free market capitalism is really a form of crowd-sourced decision-making. Alternatives would need to invent a working model that can prioritize (in the face of difficult facts, even) in an egalitarian way, balancing the needs of different interests. I read through the linked page. I didn't see anything describing how that would work, even in the Chomsky link.
- pastProlog 11y agoIt is a strange thing to use cars as an example of a free market. The government just bailed out the auto industry. The government bailed out Chrysler with loans and government contracts in the 1970s as well. The auto industry lobbied for and got massive public subsidies for highway and road construction, while lobbying against mass transit, or just smashing it like GM did with NCL. Not to mention the federal government reviving Depression-racked Detroit's fortunes when the industrial plants began having tanks roll out during WWII. The auto industry never wanted to operate in a "free market".
- humanrebar 11y agoI wouldn't claim that the car market is especially free either. You could replace car with "widget" if you'd like.
- cubano 11y agoThis is basically a reboot of Marx's 19th century ideas with a trendy fresh look. In fact, he predicted this stage (which he called the "dictatorship of the proletariat") in the evolution of "Political Economy" that will, in his mind, eventually lead inexorably to "True Communism." [0] His "theory of alienation"[1] pretty accurately describes the angst that motivates the "workers" to want to move away from the Capitalist system of production and explore ideas such as libcom.org. For those with an interest, you should read Das Kapital...Marx was a true intellectual powerhouse and his chops were both deep and wide. IMO, It all sounds very good in theory, but always seems to always fail during implementation, like a bad software project, The history of attempts with Communism shows little in the way of success as far as providing "the masses" with an increased standard of living and overall happiness, so I'll always be wary of such proposals. Personally, I believe Sartre's Existentialism better describes the human condition, although even he eventually adopted Marx. in lieu of Capitalism, which will, I believe, always be hated by the intellectuals. [0] http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/marxs_vision.php http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/marxs_vision.php [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation
- pastProlog 11y ago> read Das Kapital...sounds very good in theory, but always seems to fail during implementation What fails during implementation? When leftists of his time demanded plans from Marx, he scoffed and said he was not August Comte, and refused to "write recipes for the kitchens of the future". Marx and Engels did note changes in production led to changes in relations of production, and the superstructure (society). Some scientists think human hunting and fishing being what is was may have led to behavioral modernity 50,000 years ago. This led to a different form of primitive communism. 10000 years ago slavery and agriculture arose. 1600 years ago feudalism began to arise. 600 years ago capitalism as a dominant economic system began to arise. Since men began painting pictures of horses in caves 50,000 years ago, the world has seen four major economic systems. The current one is capitalism. You seem to say it is immutable, the three previous ones were flimsy, but you seem to say our current economic system is the final one (although the previous one said that as well - the czar was claiming God, the creator of the world, ruler of a life after life had appointed him to his throne - claimed this until he was felled by the bullets of Bolshevik soldiers). We are entering a world where I film a video, or record audio, or write code, push a button and with almost no cost in replication, can have it distributed to billions. We are entering a world where with continual improvements in robotics and AI, there may eventually be no job a human can do that an AI robot can't do (and perhaps do better - my memory, prefrontal cortex processing etc. is limited by bandwidth, space and this sort of thing in a way that a neural network translating speech to text is not). When there is no need any more for humans to farm, or mine, or even to program, will the world still be under a system of capitalism?
- skilesare 11y agoIf you want both Liberty and Community to emerge as the dominant platform, you are going to have to explore other avenues than legislating it or convincing people of it. You are going to have to re-align incentives. It is going to have to emerge through a catallaxy of people pursuing different goals. This can be done by creating a society where: 1. Money spent in and around the community brings more benefit than money spent in a far off place. 2. Success at a higher level of administration is dependent on the success of lower levels of administration(probably also controlled by the the flows of voluntary tax revenue). Even then, the type of 'communism' that develops won't be a top down variety that we saw fail miserably in the 20th century, but a bottom up version that is highly anti-fragile and able to move very quickly to take advantage of volatility.