5 ms·

But if people can freely organize themselves into collectives or communes, then some of those collectives will be more successful than others, and without manda

But if people can freely organize themselves into collectives or communes, then some of those collectives will be more successful than others, and without mandatory redistribution, you'll have inequality again. Also, if people can leave collectives, then inevitably there are going to be collectives with few or only one single member left, and you're back to individual ownership.

monocasa 10y ago
If that 'collective of one's legitimately only needs one worker, then that isn't a problem. If someone else joins him later then he has to share the MoP. I fail to see the logical inconsistency.
- snrplfth 10y ago
  But are collectives allowed to exclude people? If not, how will they select appropriate workers? If you can just show up at a collective and say "I want to work here, and you can't exclude me or kick me out" then how will they be able to function? People will just leave collectives with poor returns and make collectives with good returns take them on.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway729 10y ago
A lot of communists posit that capitalism (and perhaps in some cases statism) cause and/or arise from something kind of resembling a mental illness. Marx's "Alienation" and especially Delueze's "Desire" have this flavor. I think this is one reason why there's a whole brand of communism that's closely tied to Freudian/Lacanian style psychology. That psychological aspect usually plays some role in transitionary theories for certain brands of communism, especially anti-statist brands. Although nailing down exactly what role it's supposed to play is usually pretty difficult, it's fair to say that the answer to your question would -- for a lot of anarcho-communists -- boil down to something related to these psychological theories. This post may sound uncharitable to those communists. And I don't agree with their theories. But I also think that their work contributes something very important to discussion of fringe political theory: Flipping a psychological switch in the minds of the masses is an absolute pre-requisite for most anarchist theories. IMO that includes anarcho-capitalism. The communists at least recognized this way earlier than everyone else and are very careful about identifying psychological theories that match well with their sociological theories. We can argue whether psychological switch-flipping is a realistic expectation -- I'd argue not. But any time I read political theory, I try to identify where the author invokes a form of switch-flipping. 99% of the time the author just makes overly charitable assumptions about human psychology -- that's usually the case in mainstream politics. Communists sometimes have some Freudian psycho-analytical flavored theory. Anarcho-communists like Molyneux prefer weird pseudo-logical reasoning about moral axioms. Implicit assumptions of switch-flipping show up in mainstream politics as well (IMO "drain the swamp" and "black lives matter" both make implicit assumptions about switch-flipping that under-estimate the stubbornness and importance of human psychology...)
- snrplfth 10y ago
  Well, that's a big weakness of these theories, I think. My question is not terribly complex or dependent on unusual or unrealistic situations. I would also note that sometimes, people operating off a 'psychologist' basis like you've identified, misunderstand the critiques of others as being also 'psychologist'. For example, the Hayekian critique of central economic planning is often characterized as a psychological argument that "people are naturally selfish and greedy". Thus, if you can get them to stop being so selfish, the objection is overcome. However, what the critique is actually about is inherent limits to knowledge and information, which would apply regardless of psychology.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > My question is not terribly complex or dependent on unusual or unrealistic situations. No, usually the psychological arguments are needed to hand-wave away crucial but obvious problems. > Well, that's a big weakness of these theories No, it's not. It's perhaps their most important insight. I mean, IMO they're wrong, but the insight about the need for a psychological aspect is important and correct. Libertarians and especially anarcho-capitalists need similar psychological arguments (the fact that they often hand-wave over this need not-withstanding).
    - snrplfth 10y ago
      Let me clarify: I'm saying that the "well, your objections are just psychological" aspect is the weakness. Sure, to have a psychological theory is fine, but too often it drifts into essentially "objections to our theory are merely based in the same psychological malformation that is produced by the current system - therefore when we get rid of the system, the objections will go away too". This is a weakness, I think.
      - throwaway729 10y ago
        Ah, I see. Yes, I agree with you on that. Except maybe there's a system for which that's really true, and you and I prevent us from ever getting to that system because we reject arguments like this on the basis of form? Oh dear ;-)

monocasa 10y ago

If that 'collective of one's legitimately only needs one worker, then that isn't a problem. If someone else joins him later then he has to share the MoP. I fail to see the logical inconsistency.

snrplfth 10y ago
But are collectives allowed to exclude people? If not, how will they select appropriate workers? If you can just show up at a collective and say "I want to work here, and you can't exclude me or kick me out" then how will they be able to function? People will just leave collectives with poor returns and make collectives with good returns take them on.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

throwaway729 10y ago

A lot of communists posit that capitalism (and perhaps in some cases statism) cause and/or arise from something kind of resembling a mental illness. Marx's "Alienation" and especially Delueze's "Desire" have this flavor. I think this is one reason why there's a whole brand of communism that's closely tied to Freudian/Lacanian style psychology. That psychological aspect usually plays some role in transitionary theories for certain brands of communism, especially anti-statist brands. Although nailing down exactly what role it's supposed to play is usually pretty difficult, it's fair to say that the answer to your question would -- for a lot of anarcho-communists -- boil down to something related to these psychological theories. This post may sound uncharitable to those communists. And I don't agree with their theories. But I also think that their work contributes something very important to discussion of fringe political theory: Flipping a psychological switch in the minds of the masses is an absolute pre-requisite for most anarchist theories. IMO that includes anarcho-capitalism. The communists at least recognized this way earlier than everyone else and are very careful about identifying psychological theories that match well with their sociological theories. We can argue whether psychological switch-flipping is a realistic expectation -- I'd argue not. But any time I read political theory, I try to identify where the author invokes a form of switch-flipping. 99% of the time the author just makes overly charitable assumptions about human psychology -- that's usually the case in mainstream politics. Communists sometimes have some Freudian psycho-analytical flavored theory. Anarcho-communists like Molyneux prefer weird pseudo-logical reasoning about moral axioms. Implicit assumptions of switch-flipping show up in mainstream politics as well (IMO "drain the swamp" and "black lives matter" both make implicit assumptions about switch-flipping that under-estimate the stubbornness and importance of human psychology...)

snrplfth 10y ago
Well, that's a big weakness of these theories, I think. My question is not terribly complex or dependent on unusual or unrealistic situations. I would also note that sometimes, people operating off a 'psychologist' basis like you've identified, misunderstand the critiques of others as being also 'psychologist'. For example, the Hayekian critique of central economic planning is often characterized as a psychological argument that "people are naturally selfish and greedy". Thus, if you can get them to stop being so selfish, the objection is overcome. However, what the critique is actually about is inherent limits to knowledge and information, which would apply regardless of psychology.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > My question is not terribly complex or dependent on unusual or unrealistic situations. No, usually the psychological arguments are needed to hand-wave away crucial but obvious problems. > Well, that's a big weakness of these theories No, it's not. It's perhaps their most important insight. I mean, IMO they're wrong, but the insight about the need for a psychological aspect is important and correct. Libertarians and especially anarcho-capitalists need similar psychological arguments (the fact that they often hand-wave over this need not-withstanding).
  - snrplfth 10y ago
    Let me clarify: I'm saying that the "well, your objections are just psychological" aspect is the weakness. Sure, to have a psychological theory is fine, but too often it drifts into essentially "objections to our theory are merely based in the same psychological malformation that is produced by the current system - therefore when we get rid of the system, the objections will go away too". This is a weakness, I think.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      Ah, I see. Yes, I agree with you on that. Except maybe there's a system for which that's really true, and you and I prevent us from ever getting to that system because we reject arguments like this on the basis of form? Oh dear ;-)