Interactive Eco-Anarchist Utopia

[Bernie Gunther]

Actually, thinking about it, there was another very interesting post from Nigel Irritable on that old Green Party thread, in response to a question of mine, that might be very relevant here, particularly to the issue of deliberate subversion of such a system.

In fact those kind of structures would if anything make it easier for a cadre group to run the show. Take a small town with maybe 100 Green Party members and fifteen members of the Socialist Party or SWP. Given the membership figures that wouldn't be atypical, although I'm being a bit generous to the Greens in membership terms.

Now think of how many Green members would actually show up to each meeting and remember that all fifteen of the cadre group's members would be there on each occasion and would have caucused beforehand. It would be like a hot knife going through butter.

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=5242388&postcount=58

Obviously, such tactics aren't the particular preserve of trots. In the US, fundies use very similar tactics within the governance of the education system to try to subvert the teaching of science and in this context you could imagine some sort of secret Thatcherite cult nostalgic for their own utopia of unbridled greed, widening class divisions, blue twin-sets and the heroic rescue of British penguins from swarthy foreigners on distant islands, perhaps with the encouragement of external capitalist powers, doing a similar sort of thing with the intent of destabilising the society.

 

[Fruitloop]

Have you read up on the 'parpolity' side of parecon? I think they discuss a lot of this stuff there.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Have you read up on the 'parpolity' side of parecon? I think they discuss a lot of this stuff there.

Ah, OK no. I had a quick look, but I wouldn't say I've studied it thoroughly.

Thanks for the tip ..

 

[kyser_soze]

BG - have you read 'Salt' by Adam Roberts? Would seem to be in the niche you're talking about...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Nope. I'll add it to the list though

 

[DownwardDog]

I'd think a similar issue applies to starting a bank. Why would anyone want to get personal loans in a Parecon? It's not immediately obvious to me that they would.

As long as there is money then money will be borrowed and lent. As long as there are things to buy then people would rather buy it now than wait. I don't see how this can be avoided as long as you have a universal and fungible means of exchange.

I think that people's inclination to better their lot by lapsing into mercantile and usurious behaviour is a much bigger threat to Gunthergrad than any external power attempting to reclaim it for capitalism by force of arms.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I'm still not sure what you think people would use banks for in the context of a Parecon or anything working along those lines. You don't have any need to make private investments and you don't need banks for mortgages or anything like that, because the allocation system handles all that stuff.

 

[DownwardDog]

I'm still not sure what you think people would use banks for in the context of a Parecon or anything working along those lines. You don't have any need to make private investments and you don't need banks for mortgages or anything like that, because the allocation system handles all that stuff.

I'm struggling to understand 90% of it to be honest. What do you mean specifically by 'handles all that stuff' in the context of, say, buying a house?

I wasn't really thinking about mortgages or investments but more about smaller personal loans like to, for example, someone who has already drank their wages for the month but fancies going out on the scoop at the weekend.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Ah OK. It'll take me a bit to explain that and I'm just about to go eat. Here's a fairly lucid explanation meanwhile.

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/19699

 

[littlebabyjesus]

OK, I'm warming up to it now I know I can outsource my 10 hours of shit work. What if I did lots of other people's 10 hours, saved a heap of money and opened a bank where people could get micro loans? Wouldn't we inevitably lapse back into capitalist type relationships?

This is where the scale element comes in, I would have thought. You're not being allocated your social labour by some faceless bureaucrat, but by your immediate neighbours (and you are as fully involved in the decision as you want to be). As BG said, the principle that decisions are taken at as local a level as possible is crucial.

For most people, it would very soon come to be seen as a civil duty. And after all, 10 hours a week is not that much if it then frees you to do what interests you the rest of the time. It's about extending the sense of both responsibility and ownership that people feel now about, say, the voluntary organisation or club they belong to.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If my community is supporting a doctor I don't want her wasting 10 hours a week cleaning up shit, so there would have to be exceptions to that rule.

One of the duties at my martial arts club was to mop the floor before training. Everyone was expected to come early and do it if they could, and for a time, one person who regularly turned up was a doctor.

What makes you think that the doctor would not want to do it? Also, the whole idea, I would have thought, is that everyone should have the chance to develop skills and interests that would be valuable. Why single out doctors?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Example ...

'I want a yacht'

My example utopia is set (partly for reasons of humour) in Tranmere, which overlooks the river Mersey and I've included the bit of Rock Ferry where the oil terminal is within its boundaries. So there would almost certainly be people who could build a yacht available within the community and somewhere to sail it.

Now I've actually got some figures someplace for the Napoleonic era, but let's arbitarily say that a decent small yacht is going to take 3 craftsmen a year to construct and that it'll consume another 2 man year's worth of raw materials. So that's 5 man-years worth of value.

In a Parecon everybody gets paid more or less the same for their effort, with maybe a bit extra for really shit jobs. So assuming our potential yacht owner works at one that draws 50% extra and let's say that covers his other needs without being too frugal, then he can have his yacht in 5 years.

If he wants it faster, he'll have to either club together with some like-minded souls, or he'll have to find a way to make it a community investment or both.

So for example, he gets together with some fellow enthusiasts and works out a time-share arrangement. Or alternatively, he comes up with what amounts to a business plan involving coastal hauling and convinces the appropriate workers and neighbourhood councils that this is worth it to the community.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

One of the duties at my martial arts club was to mop the floor before training. Everyone was expected to come early and do it if they could, and for a time, one person who regularly turned up was a doctor.

What makes you think that the doctor would not want to do it? Also, the whole idea, I would have thought, is that everyone should have the chance to develop skills and interests that would be valuable. Why single out doctors?

It also assumes doctors are in short supply, but they needn't be especially as under such a system, studying is not limited to those who can afford to pay.

 

[DownwardDog]

If he wants it faster, he'll have to either club together with some like-minded souls, or he'll have to find a way to make it a community investment or both.

Or he could borrow the money from my new bank, pay me back for six years and go sailing this weekend?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't think you're quite in the spirit of this thing, DD.

In my version, lending money at interest would be a thing of the past.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Or he could borrow the money from my new bank, pay me back for six years and go sailing this weekend?

Well yes. That's why I constructed the example, but remember big piles of money don't exist in a Parecon except within the allocation process. (It's not strictly money anyway) but the point is that if you're within a Parecon, you don't have any capital to lend. If you're outside of a Parecon trying to lend money to people in it, then they can't spend it locally. But I guess you could deliver the yacht. Trouble is, how's he then going to pay you back ... ?

 

[DownwardDog]

Well yes. That's why I constructed the example, but remember big piles of money don't exist in a Parecon except within the allocation process. (It's not strictly money anyway) but the point is that if you're within a Parecon, you don't have any capital to lend. If you're outside of a Parecon trying to lend money to people in it, then they can't spend it locally. But I guess you could deliver the yacht. Trouble is, how's he then going to pay you back ... ?

Well no doubt capitalising the first private bank in the parecon (I refuse acknowledge its divinity with a capital P) will be hard. I may have to sell boat bonds with 10% yield that mature at 6 years - that leaves me a fat 7% profit.

In what sense is it not money? Is it like bind on acquire loot in an MMORPG that has no physical form that I can transfer to anyone else? That would scupper all my outsourcing and nascent banking antics but would probably lead to a massive, parallel black market for just about everything.

 

[Spion]

It's an interesting thought experiment.

The key flaw to me in your starting scenario is the assumption of total socio-economic breakdown. Now, of course that *could* be something that happened, but to me that is just one possible starting scenario and one that seems to assume giving up on the opportunity of wresting control of what might exist in terms of the productive resources which could be re-moulded by democratically decided collective action and planning. In short, I think you've jumped the gun.

Instead, I'd assume a starting point way earlier in terms of systemic cohesion/breakdown - one beginning from economic crisis possibly combined with war which saw people beginning to organise the industries and services that exist to provide for need rather than profit as capitalism proved unfit for the job.

For that reason I'd also question the local/regional emphasis of your model as it's far likelier there would have been national and international-level crises and therefore national or wider geographic responses and restructuring by grass roots organisations.

Flowing from this would be the necessity/desirability of organising cooperation on a much more extensive (national. international even) geographic basis, involving the division of labour, exchange of goods and planning of economic life as well as socio-economic/political links.

These would not only be necessary to ensure against political isolation and aggressive action from hostile social forces as well as being desirable in terms of allowing greater economies of scale and efficiency in production - which would be for need according to a democratically arrived at plan, not for profit.

In case it's not obvious I'm for the maximum possible democracy with recallability and full acountability with no material privilege for those chosen to represent. Where I differ from you is that I think there has to be some kind of hierarchy so that decisions can be taken from a higher vantage point * to enable more efficient, wider-scale planning, but must stress that there would have to be fed by efficient democratic mechanisms that put control and accountability of all representatives in the hands of the widest possible number of people.

The real question is though, how do we get there from where we are now?

(* I'm yet to figure out exactly how hundreds of thousands or millions of people would make decisions over what was produced and how much)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well no doubt capitalising the first private bank in the parecon (I refuse acknowledge its divinity with a capital P) will be hard. I may have to sell boat bonds with 10% yield that mature at 6 years - that leaves me a fat 7% profit.

You're stuck in capitalism. For something like BG's idea to work, the nature of money would have to change. There would need to be 'personal' moneyb (for optional extras) and 'community' money (for all essentials), imo, and the two would not be exchangeable.

What leaves me slightly uncomfortable with the conception is the idea of coercion. To have a Swiss-style system of military would require conscription. There are intimate links in Switzerland between the military and business, and success in one will lead to success in the other. Switzerland is also a depressingly conformist place. Where do the malcontented drop-outs go? Is there a place for them?

 

[Spion]

Where do the malcontented drop-outs go? Is there a place for them?

Probably not. Maybe we could create 'dosser island' where they could go and whinge and lie in bed all day.

But the real point is to create a society without the alienation that this one produces - one where everyone is involved and has a great deal more control over their lives.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Probably not. Maybe we could create 'dosser island' where they could go and whinge and lie in bed all day.

But the real point is to create a society without the alienation that this one produces - one where everyone is involved and has a great deal more control over their lives.

In that case, I don't think I like it. I prefer the idea that everyone is given the basics to survive on, no questions asked, then you build from there.

Very few people will choose to drop out, but the space to do so is vital to a healthy society, imo.

 

[Spion]

Very few people will choose to drop out, but the space to do so is vital to a healthy society, imo.

Well, by harnessing the most efficient forms of production to produce life's need but without the waste and duplication capitalism entails (the need for constant 'growth', many different businesses competing blindlly for the same market etc) we should be able to make a more productive society and we all start to work less. Add to this the fact that we'd be deciding what we wanted to produce rather than what makes profit for a few as well as breaking down the barriers of unskilled/skilled and the result should be a more rewarding life, with lots more scope for creativity.

We have to get rid of private property in the means of production and the profit motive that flows from this to do that tho

 

[free spirit]

I think I agree with the Parecon guys about this. There's no hard and fast rule and the groups should decide for themselves which they use. There are definite advantages to consensus though, especially because it can address the 'I can't live with that decision' case.

Edited to add: I'm suddenly reminded of this post for some reason - http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=5209930&#post5209930

Sorry bernie, I'm not quite sure what your point is because you linked to the thread rather than any specific post.

I'm aware there'd be no hard and fast rule, but if I remember correctly from your initial post that you later deleted, you're talking about writing a book about this, so I'd have thought you'd need to nail your colours to a mast and decide what the most likely decision making system to have evolved would be for the purposes of this exercise.

Actually, thinking about it, there was another very interesting post from Nigel Irritable on that old Green Party thread, in response to a question of mine, that might be very relevant here, particularly to the issue of deliberate subversion of such a system.



http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=5242388&postcount=58

Obviously, such tactics aren't the particular preserve of trots. In the US, fundies use very similar tactics within the governance of the education system to try to subvert the teaching of science and in this context you could imagine some sort of secret Thatcherite cult nostalgic for their own utopia of unbridled greed, widening class divisions, blue twin-sets and the heroic rescue of British penguins from swarthy foreigners on distant islands, perhaps with the encouragement of external capitalist powers, doing a similar sort of thing with the intent of destabilising the society.

I don't really follow. How would a cadre of 15 people however committed manage to cut through a concensus decision making process 'like a hot knife through butter'?

Presuming there was a set quorum for any meetings at a relatively high percentage of the total number of people in the village (so the cadre couldn't bore people into submission to the point where only they were left turning up to the meetings... as they'd then be inquorate), the best any cadre could hope to do is block a decision, meaning they'd all then have to go away, reconsider their position, try to find a compromise, meet again, then potentially block it again, but after a few attempts at this, the expected solution would be for those remaining who were blocking the decision to either agree to stand aside and allow the decision to pass for the good of the whole community, or for the majority grouping to decide to drop the entire idea for now for the good of the community, and eventually if one small grouping was consistently blocking decisions, and obviously having irreconcilable differences with everyone else in the village, then eventually they'd likely be given the option of either stopping being so obstructive and getting on board with the rest of the village, or leaving the collective to form their own collective (taking with them an agreed share of the overall workload burden etc) and then being able to self manage in their own preferred way.

so any group of deliberately obstructive trots would essentially end up utterly marginalised, and responsible only for managing the affairs of their grouping, while the rest of the collective carried on as before

something like that anyway... point being that because there's no way for any grouping to actually gain anything from continual blocking of decisions, and the only logical eventual consequence of ongoing intransigence would be for them to end up having to decide whether they were so adamant on this issue that they would prefer to leave the collective rather than agree a compromise, that people would pretty rapidly change their thinking and the whole issue would only rarely crop up... ie push the point too far and the result will have been to end up excluding yourself from the collective, which isn't usually the desired outcome for entriest style groups.

good facilitators and mediators helps too.

I'm not saying there'd not be teething problems, and maybe it'd never get past the teething problems due to everyone being so used to the current majority rules ethos... but if you're going to look at this in a 'what if' style of writing about a future eco-anarchist utopia, then I really don't see how you can do this and base it on a majority decision making model.

Actually can a majority decision making model actually be described as anarchist?


*goes to have a read of that parecon link)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

But however just and fair you may think the society is (by you, I mean anyone), I may disagree. And who is to be the final arbiter?

 

[free spirit]

In that case, I don't think I like it. I prefer the idea that everyone is given the basics to survive on, no questions asked, then you build from there.

Very few people will choose to drop out, but the space to do so is vital to a healthy society, imo.

everyone is given the basics?

given by who?

actually I'd potentially agree with this if you meant everyone who did their share of the communal work got the basics to survive on (as well as anyone not fit to work), but not someone who just decided they couldn't be arsed to do their bit, and wanted to just doss around all day everyday and expect the rest of the community to feed and cloth him. Ain't no such thing as total unemployment in this system, as everyone is expected to pitch in to cover the communal work, and the more people who do it, the less time it will take for everyone... many hands make light work and all that.

 

[Spion]

But however just and fair you may think the society is (by you, I mean anyone), I may disagree. And who is to be the final arbiter?

People. In communities. By discussing and expressing their decision. You either decide to change a decision you don't like, or you leave.

 

[free spirit]

But however just and fair you may think the society is (by you, I mean anyone), I may disagree. And who is to be the final arbiter?

everyone is the final arbiter for themselves as it is always the individuals right to chose to exclude themselves from the group if they disagree so vehemently with a decision everyone else has agreed with (after long attempts to find a compromise, and if you're not prepared to abstain on this decision to enable everyone to move forward).

essentially in most situations while someone may not agree that the proposed schedule of bringing in the harvest, or building a kids playground etc. is the best way it could be done, and they may well think their ideas are better, they just accept that the decision isn't really important enough to make a major fuss about, and if everyone else wants to do it that way then so be it... ie I'll agree to let this motion pass, but want my objections noted - essentially so you can say I told you so if it does all fuck up.

ah - I just realised that actually the final arbiter is the rest of the community, as if they decide by concensus that you're being too obstructive to remain as part of the collective, then they'd have the right to ask (tell) you to leave... or maybe it'd be that they'd all individually have the right to decide to leave the collective on mass, then immediately form their own new collective without you being invited to be part of it... which would both amount to the same thing.

essentially though, as this is the only real logical conclusion of someone being continually obstructive and continually blocking decisions, it really does boil down to you deciding to exclude yourself.

 

[Santino]

One of the duties at my martial arts club was to mop the floor before training. Everyone was expected to come early and do it if they could, and for a time, one person who regularly turned up was a doctor.

What makes you think that the doctor would not want to do it? Also, the whole idea, I would have thought, is that everyone should have the chance to develop skills and interests that would be valuable. Why single out doctors?

My point is not whether the doctor wants to do it, it is that given that my community has supported the doctor through years of education we should use them to their full doctoring capacity and not waste their time picking potatoes and cleaning up shit. Unless we are in full-on socialist utopia with material surplus for all (and the OP is fairly clear that we are not) then it is a waste to have a physician not physicking for all their working week.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It is what Bertrand Russell described as 'the vagabond's wage'. The decision is taken collectively that everyone, no matter how lazy or obtuse they may be, is fed and clothed. Nothing more, but at least that.

A person may have a personal mission that others do not understand. Let them do it. As I said before, the vast majority (including me, most certainly) will either want to pitch in or want a bit more than to be fed and clothed or both. But among other things, the absence of coercion ensures that tyranny cannot take hold again.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

My point is not whether the doctor wants to do it, it is that given that my community has supported the doctor through years of education we should use them to their full doctoring capacity and not waste their time picking potatoes and cleaning up shit. Unless we are in full-on socialist utopia with material surplus for all (and the OP is fairly clear that we are not) then it is a waste to have a physician not physicking for all their working week.

I disagree. The fundamental facts of equality and the need to get unpleasant tasks done trumps any idea of waste. It also takes years to train an architect, an engineer, a master carpenter...