I can sum up capitalism vs communism. Communism is capitalism. Exchanging value does not need to be in the form of money or goods. If everyone agrees to share the wealth of of the collective that is still capitalism.
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That is the only method by which communism can function. The moment one person doesn't want to, communism is faced with a dilemma: it must either initiate force against a peaceful person and render itself immoral, or it must abide by that person's consent and thereby lose his or her productive capacity.
Communism is also not capitalism. Capitalism involves voluntary exchange between individuals. In communism, no such exchange happens because there is no ownership of property; common ownership renders exchange meaningless.
Private property comes from you first owning yourself and actions. I don't see how personal accumulation of property is a non anarchist belief. It's your right to either keep your property to yourself or share it with the collective. Either way it's your choice. Communism without choice to be a capitalist is saying you do not own yourself and that you must conform to a system you don't agree with
Exactly. As long as all exchanges or interactions are voluntary and consensual, and no one is holding a gun to your head to make you conform, it is anarchy. If we repudiate the use of violence to coerce people into submission, that is anarchy.
Hell, I don't care if people want to go out and start their own communes and live in a worker's utopia for the rest of their lives. Just leave me out of it.
Right, I think a big issue with the communist movement is they are unwilling to accept capitalism in our form and believe even if by choice you wish to engage in capitalism you are not an anarchist. Both systems need to be able to exist for real freedom and each individual choose
Absolutely. The beautiful part about a truly anarchist society is that people are free to engage with each other however they want to. If you want to make a sweet commune with a bunch of like-minded folks, go for it! If you don't, that's cool too! The difference between capitalism and communism is that the former allows for the later, whereas it's not the same the other way around like you said.
Absolutely! Any form of anarchy that disallows certain interactions isn't anarchy at all.
I think that a truly sustainable, peaceful society will have to be fluid in its mechanisms for distributing goods and services. In times of hardship, communal efforts will be required for the optimal function of the society. In times of plenty, more laissez-faire attitudes will optimize the allocation of resources.
Adaptability is the key to survival.
You call yourself an anarchist......private property itself is channel which oppression comes most.
Violence on behalf of arbitrary rulers is way more oppressive than me homesteading a piece of land, chief. Try again.
Unless you want me to claim my need to use your body to accomplish my ends is greater than your claim to your own body. Means of production and all that.
So you're telling me a workplace where the people democratically on will allocate goods to each piece and allocate the resources made to each worker based on what that worker produced is less anarchist than working for a rich person giving you nearly nothing compared to what you make for him because he had enough money to "buy" the "property" that was made by another worker. A person who has never worked for it gets everything I produce because I'm on "his property" sounds like taxes to me.....
Using violence to keep what you produce > using violence to keep what others produce.
Unless you become an actual slave, working for a wage is not having everything you produce taken away from you, so let's just dispense with that right here and now. I'd also like to point out that investing in means to make individual workers more productive is, in fact, a risk on behalf of the property owner. Unless you feel that other people should just hand over their property to the community to let the community decide how to disburse it.
Secondly, in either of those scenarios, the worker is subordinated to an authority. In the former, he has the illusion of being part of the ruling class, even though a majority vote determines what he gets. In the latter, it is determined by a contractual agreement with the owner of the property and the means of production. So long as neither of them involve the use of violence to coerce him into laboring and producing, both are anarchy. One is not more anarchy than the other; your incredulity at me calling socialism a structure with a central authority in it doesn't change the fact that it has one in it.
Voluntary, consensual exchange > using violence to get what you want. I'm also waiting for you to answer the question about community ownership of your body, since that's a means of production.
Communism is getting the full results of your labor without anybody able to take it away
And not being able to keep any means you might want to use to make yourself more productive, and thus improve your standard of living. Doesn't communism also hold that private property doesn't exist, and that means of production are owned in common, along with everything else? Who has a greater claim to my body than me? Or my car? Or my house? Or do I just not get any of those things? Who decides what I can or cannot use?
I already explained personal vs private property I will make a post on it at some point and I will hopefully be able to dumb it down enough.
How about you just riddle me this: what objective criteria separates the two?
In response to the conversation andrei and I were having. (can't comment past 6 deep apparently.)
When I say communism is capitalism what I mean is if you were to voluntarily live in a commune you would have to be agreeing to do so. If that is the case then each individual has essentially agreed to share the benefits of their labor with the collective, which they reciprocate. That to me is no different than a trade, it may be a different kind of trade, but it still is one.
Agreed @justinschwalm. So long as it's voluntary and consensual, people can, and should, be free to do as they wish. I'll never assert otherwise, even when it comes to establishing communes or socialist communities.