[KlassWar]

if you justify using force to defend the values of your society by killing ancaps

Left-anarchists probably wouldn't need to: Simple class analysis tells us so. 85+% of ancaps are petty-bourgeois: Either small business owners, freelancers or consultants. This is not a class that needs to be violently erased.

Those that freelance will keep freelancing. In exchange for comprehensive debt relief (them mortgages 'n' shit go away), many small businessowners (esp. family shops) would probably accept their gig becoming a cooperative... Especially on a bear market. Consultants would just consult for cooperatives rather than companies.

If their material prosperity were to rise (and I believe syndicalist economics under market socialism would raise them) and their personal lifestyle freedom were to increase (and the Hard Left could get rid of a lot of puritanical bullshit), they'd probably come around sooner or later.

If you set the transitional economy up with a modicum of common sense and you're sure to maintain Worker Power both economically and politically, there's no reason to believe some syndicalist/market socialist system couldn't eventually give way to properly-Socialist economics and eventually communism.

[mikema63]

you're sure to maintain Worker Power both economically and politically

Politically

Otherwise i think that if you actually didn't kill everybody different from you in an anarchist system then eventually you will end up with everyone living under whatever the best system ended up being. I'm inclined to think that the system that would result wouldn't be something that anybody actively predicted, i think that the different schools of anarchism are more about the type of society you would start with but you really cant predict what you will end up with in the end. I would be content to see what came out, of course I'm not aloud in any of the anarchist clubs and so many seem more than happy on rubbing me out of any future worlds the make.

[KlassWar]

Someone will be deciding where roads, dams and hospitals get built: For large-scale projects, resources have to be supplied and funding has to be secured. Plenty projects are beyond the scope of a single factory or a single co-op, ain't they? For the common defense, local branches of the militia have to be coordinated.

These tasks need doing, and there's policy involved. That's inherently political, anarchy or not. Someone's gotta do it, might as well be the revolutionary workers' movement.

[mikema63]

I don't know co-ops can get pretty big, I think Red Barn linked me to the Mandragon company which has about 84,000 members.

[Demosthenes]

Haven't read through this yet, and I know I'm slightly necro-posting here, but...

Why do we need to defend anything, at all? Ever?

[SolarCross]

Haven't read through this yet, and I know I'm slightly necro-posting here, but...

Why do we need to defend anything, at all? Ever?

'Those that beat their swords into ploughshares just end up working for those that kept their swords.'

Bullies rob and humiliate those who can't fight back; they leave well alone those that return the pain.

[Demosthenes]

Oh, I appreciate that taxizen. I didn't say we shouldn't fight, I said, or meant to say, I don't see what we have to defend.

If anything, we should be attacking. Constantly.

I'm totally down and with you on the sword front.

[Figlio di Moros]

Left-anarchists probably wouldn't need to: Simple class analysis tells us so. 85+% of ancaps are petty-bourgeois: Either small business owners, freelancers or consultants. This is not a class that needs to be violently erased.

Those that freelance will keep freelancing. In exchange for comprehensive debt relief (them mortgages 'n' shit go away), many small businessowners (esp. family shops) would probably accept their gig becoming a cooperative... Especially on a bear market. Consultants would just consult for cooperatives rather than companies.

If their material prosperity were to rise (and I believe syndicalist economics under market socialism would raise them) and their personal lifestyle freedom were to increase (and the Hard Left could get rid of a lot of puritanical bullshit), they'd probably come around sooner or later.

If you set the transitional economy up with a modicum of common sense and you're sure to maintain Worker Power both economically and politically, there's no reason to believe some syndicalist/market socialist system couldn't eventually give way to properly-Socialist economics and eventually communism.

So, you believe the petite-bourgeosie can be maintained in an anarchist economy? I think it's a fascinating subject, because I've seen different conclusions from different leftists- some calling for the eradication of all bourgeosie, not just the haute-bourgeosie, while some others have been indifferent or called for maintaining them atleast for a while.

How do you see relations between workers and petite-bourgeosie unfolding in a post-hierarchal system?

[Dr House]

It's not quite obvious at all. The anarchist option does involve a lot more explanation and justification, but in some ways such a strategy of peer review means that a militia would be less subject to communications disruptions (because there would be a much larger number of people cognizant of the "plan") and high-level strategic oversights (because people at every level would be involved in making the decisions).

This creates a ridiculously long and inefficient OODA loop. Everyone's cognizant of the original plan, but when you get boots on the ground and the shit hits the proverbial fan, adjustments will need to be made on the fly. The more people in charge, the longer this takes.

As was noted by observers in the Spanish Civil War, this is not altogether a bad method of organizing a militia. It's different to be sure, but that doesn't necessarily imply worse.

I'm not as well-informed o the Spanish Civil War as I'd like, but it kind of seems relevant to point out that the Republicans lost the war.

There are also broader strategic advantages to anarchist organization (like attracting significant numbers of defectors--the relative prosperity and freedom of an anarchist society would be attractive to the other side in a long-term conflict)

Keep telling yourself that.

Millitaries have never been democratic because there is no way the ruling class could never convince the common part-time soldier of early armies to go out and die for the profit of their ruling elites otherwise. If militaries were democratic they would never be anything but defensive.

Historically, wars of conquest, if won, were highly profitable to the masses. If your country successfully invaded and occupied another country, that meant you got money, supply stocks, land, resources, and possibly cheap labor. Imperial expansionism was actually the only way both to create a better life for commoners and to make nobles wealthier prior to the Industrial Revolution in fact, which is why war was so commonplace.

A) They are certainly capable, if given the opportunity and training.

The average worker isn't intelligent enough to be a manager. Additionally, management is a job unto itself; you need to actually have a bird's eye view of what's going on so you can coordinate it properly. You can't do that and man the assembly line simultaneously.

B) The assumption that groups cannot self-manage is a fundamentally flawed one that stems mainly from people who haven't observed small group management within larger organizations. Groups do self-manage, all the time, and often in ways contradictory to the established formal hierarchy. For the most part people are perfectly capable of intelligent self-management given an overall plan established by group consensus--which is often how groups actually behave even under hierarchies.

Obviously everyone doesn't have the same information, and a certain amount of flexibility is requisite to good management, but for a group to work efficiently it needs to be coordinated, which requires a certain amount of centralization. We do not have hive-minds, so when there is an information conflict someone needs to have the final say.

[KlassWar]

So, you believe the petite-bourgeosie can be maintained in an anarchist economy? I think it's a fascinating subject, because I've seen different conclusions from different leftists- some calling for the eradication of all bourgeosie, not just the haute-bourgeosie, while some others have been indifferent or called for maintaining them atleast for a while.

How do you see relations between workers and petite-bourgeosie unfolding in a post-hierarchal system?

Very sorry for missing this post a long time ago!

The average petty-bourgeois is either a retailer, a professional or a contractor. These classes' material interests are not opposed to the proletariat's. Let's take an example I know well: Freelance programmer. Somebody offers the programmer a certain pay for developing a particular software (usually it's a company doing the paying and a website being developed). Whether it's a capitalist company or a socialist cooperative doing the contracting makes little difference to the programmer.

Presumably, a worker-run company doesn't want to throw money down the drain neither, so they probably wouldn't hire permanent workers to do an one-time task. I don't expect the demand for contractors to shrink significantly during the first stages of socialist construction.

As for professionals like doctors and teachers, whether they remain civil servants in a public health/education system or are employed by a cooperative that provides services to its members, they remain educated professionals, relatively scarce and therefore relatively well-off.

So I doubt socialist construction would obliterate the petty-bourgeoisie instantly. It's likely that worker's cooperatives and consumers' cooperatives would come to dominate the economy pretty much completely in a few decades and that the middle classes would eventually be proletarianized (ending up as members of some cooperative or another), but this isn't neccessarily negative in a working-class-dominated society.