Darth Wong wrote:
Wow. You totally ignored my question.
You asked:
"How can you use examples of small anarcho-syndicalist communities within larger conventional nation-states as proof of the viability of anarchism?"
I answered (paraphrased): It proves that anarcho-syndicalism works on a micro-economic scale, and provides a somewhat realistic model for a workplace. On the macro-level, an anarcho-syndicate society probably wouldn't operate much differently from a normal modern-day government.
It's not proof of anything, but merely evidence.
For all of it's accomplishments, the Kibbutzniks have gone through many hard times and have to constantly adapt with the changing conditions of the economy just like any workplace.
A lot of stray communes without some over-arching institution will have a huge problem with interaction; they will either have to create a communal market (simply transform all capitalist enterprises into communes) which poses lots of problems on it's own, or create a planning institution which would coordinate their economic activity.
I doubt there's any real way around that; the Kwas himself admits that the syndicalist model would require a channel for interaction and it would probably be similar to the currently existing governments.
The problem with anarcho-syndicalism is that it severly curtails the speed of government action by introducing direct democracy; for example, even routine acts of government affect millions of people; if every time all of them got to voice a popular vote, the government would get bankrupt.
So even as anarcho-syndicalism isn't your flat out anarcho-libertarianism (DESTROY ALL GOVERNMENT!!!), it's a very problematic construction. I'd say on a large scale it's impossible right now.
Agreed to an extent. Many anarchists argue that the 'over-arching' aspect of government would be much less active than modern governments due to more empowered local governments (possible, but I doubt it personally). Almost all anarchists agree that there's going to have to be a serious paradigm shift in society so that people take an actual interest in direct democracy (which is one of the reasons why many prefer to infuse the direct democracy with the workplace), and I've often heard people cite Switzerland as an example where a limited form of direct democracy has stayed relatively vibrant and alive. I don't know much about Switzerland myself, so I can't comment how accurate this statement is or how good of a model Switzerland really is.
There's also a model of anarchist economics called ParEcon--or participatory economics--that is an attempt to describe how a planned anarchist economy could work smoothly. I haven't read any in-depth literature on the subject, but from the few articles I've read it seems that the general idea is that there will be heavy usage of matrices and the general math used in the Soviet Union to direct alocation, but instead of it being conducted by a central government, all of the information is processed somehow by interactions between producer councils and consumer councils for individual communities.
More moderate anarchists are willing to accept a lesser degree of direct democracy and advocate the model of numerous
co-operative federations, or more generally the large union model like the numerous public employee unions (CUPE, or perhaps even the Canadian Labour Congress, comes to mind for me since I'm a Canadian, I don't know if there's a major Russian example). I personally find such a model too simplistic to accomodate the needs of a federal government in it's current form, but then again any model will natural evolve to do it's job more effectively. After all, a great portion of Canada's model of government is actually based on convention rather than on any constitutional decree; The Prime Minister himself is a prime (heh heh, I'm lame) example.
The sad part, as with any other political stance, is that a lot of those saying to follow the idea, do not understand it, and only work towards that fraction of the ideal they most like.
That's why you get a bunch of morons sporting Anarchistic logos on their clothing, and then causing utter chaos and disorder. They completely fail at recognizing that an important part of an Anarchic Ideal is that each person must be responsible for their actions, and strive to make things work (Wich, as has been richly elaborated on the Voluntaryst-bashing thread, is wildly utopic at best).
But then again, a lot of people think that Communism is only about taking money from the rich, that Democracy is about 51% of the population telling the other 49% to shut the fuck off, that Capitalism is about personal gain, or that Socialist intiatives (like universal healthcare) are just a means to screw-up the money-earning enterpeneurs.
An ideal Anarchy would be like Lennon's "Imagine", yet those claiming to be Anarchists listen to angry hard rock.
Very true. I've heard many arguments about whether anarchists should actually abandon the name due to the tainted reputation it has due to both it's historical interpretation (CHAOS!), due to Punk Rockers saying their anarchists because they actually like chaos, and due to a growing anarcho-capitalist movement that, in practice, actually promotes market chaos.
I think Noam Chomsky has actually cited some of these concerns as reasons why he prefers to call himself a 'Libertarian Socialist' rather than an Anarchist.
At some point, when what TheKwas is espousing - those kibbutz or something - grow to such a point that it encompasses a really large area with a whole lot of people, won't this "anarchist society" be no different from other forms of government, anyway?
I mean, these solutions Kwas brings up to make anarchist society work sound very similar to the solutions brought up to make governments work.
So, what's the difference?
On a macro-level, I don't see anarcho-syndicalism being that radical compared to modern governments (the same can't really be said for other versions of anarchism, but a discussion on anarcho-syndicalism alone has already spanned 3 pages, so I won't bite more than I can chew). On a micro-level, I think would be pretty radical: No bosses that can fire you, democracy in the workplace, community meetings to make important decisions, more egalitarian wages, no more corporations of any size, ect.
"
