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Libertarian communism

libcom.org

41–50 of 90 posts

Re: Libertarian communism

#41
post #20

> "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…

I'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 s…

The 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.

Re: Libertarian communism

#42
> 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.

Re: Libertarian communism

#43
post #6

The 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?

You are confusing communism with state capitalism.

Re: Libertarian communism

#44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was state socialism, not a true communist society. Any form of repression, coercion and control are condemned by anarchists / libertarian socialists. The USSR was certainly a state which was did of that. The reason why the USSR was trumpeted as socialist was that it suited both sides' propaganda to do so. For the Americans, to vilify socialism, and for the Russians to give their rule the appearance of genuine so…

"The rise of communism in China, although violent and of the state-socialist kind, also brought hundreds of millions out of poverty. " - Modern China's rise has come Capitalism, and liberalisation of the markets. Before the market reforms china, wasn't... great.

Nope it really wasn't. There was massive chaos during the economic upheavals of Mao. But the reduction in poverty is still an impressive achievement subsequently to that. Compared to countries like Brazil, South Africa etc which also had the oppurtunities to reduce poverty but it has increased and the economic disparity is worse than ever. Even the USA has increasing poverty.

Re: Libertarian communism

#45
This 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

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

Re: Libertarian communism

#46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Can you name one example of a communist system, where that metric is so small, it's negligible?

I'm not well versed in this part of history, but a quick Google search yielded Tito's Yugoslavia.

Re: Libertarian communism

#47

> "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…

I considered myself a communist when I was younger, and would say I'm politically agnostic now. I don't think you can reconcile it with a pure labor valuation, you have to reject it. Tech people see crazy amounts of money concentrated into the hands of a small number of organizations, and at the same time pretty horrible poverty in the global south. It seems natural to connect the two, tech sweatshops producing the devices software we write runs on, and see global redistribution of wealth as a healthy productive way to even those things out and technology as the means to do so. With that being said, I think drawing on failed Marxist experiments is not the way to get people to jump on board.

Re: Libertarian communism

#48
post #32

After 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..…

Classical 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.

Re: Libertarian communism

#49

> "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…

> This is the weirdest thing about the dichotomy of Communism's popular resurgence in tech circles.

The weirdest thing to me is that it's pretty hard to produce and maintain software systems in the face of limited resources, interactions with the real world, bosses that don't know what's going on, etc. But somehow it seems not just possible but optimal to top-down design the ways billions of people live their lives. It really doesn't matter if the designer is one person or a committee of the proletariat. That's an NP-ridiculous problem.

In the fact of that, I'd rather individuals make decisions about their own lives.

Re: Libertarian communism

#50
post #35
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism has executed exactly 0 people. Communism is just an economic system, don't confuse it with the totalitarian dictators who may have used it. America has murdered, tortured, and committed genocide and terrorism against countless people, but that's not directly related to the economic system. Capitalism has been responsible for slavery, sweatshops, child labor, pollution, etc. On the other hand, it also brough…

Communism is system that via implementation details tends to result in totalitarianism. If you have a central place to plan the economy to distribute via need, that place is going to be heavily concentrated in power. And due to human nature that tends to be abused. Capitalism, and markets don't have a central place to plan to economy. Power is decentralised via companies, and production controlled via market incentiv…

Your theory is absolutely correct but in practice the corporations and government represent a very substantial concentration of power and resources in the control of very few, plus they are allied with each other. Government often helps large corporation via bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies etc. and large corporations inform government and even fill it's ranks. Essentially we have a system of state capitalism not laissez-faire capitalism. This makes it very difficult for small companies to compete freely in an open market.
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