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Title: Accumulation of Freedom Author: Ridhiman Balaji Date: October 20, 2020 Language: en Topics: accumulation, freedom, economics, book review, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review Source: Retrieved on 28th January 2021 from https://syndicalist.us/2020/10/20/accumulation-of-freedom-writings-on-anarchist-economics/ Notes: From Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #81, Winter 2021
Deric Shannon, Anthony Nocella & John Asimakopoulos, eds., Accumulation
of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics. AK Press, 2012, 375 pp.,
$21, paperback.
Accumulation of Freedom is a collection of essays written by various
anarchists and libertarian socialists. They provide their own take on
issues such as revolutionary strategy, globalization, class, hegemony
and many others. Many of the contributors are anarcho-communists. The
book is very much a mixed bag; some essays are really good, while others
are quite bad. Accumulation begins with a preface by Kinna, who begins
by presenting a critique of mainstream economics, which many believe is
based on unrealistic assumptions. Kinna blames the ideology of
neoliberalism for the emergence of a global economic system in which
economic institutions such as the market are under-regulated and
ill-planned. Contrary to the “anarcho”-capitalism of Murray Rothbard,
Kinna argues “anarchism offers a strong and rich heritage of
anti-capitalist thinking.” (6) According to Kinna, neoliberal
globalization has produced three sets of problems: 1) Corporate
capitalism, 2) environmental and ecological costs of industrialization
and modernization, and 3) the unfairness of global market regulation
and, in particular, the Western bias of institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. Although
Kinna does a good job discussing issues raised by neoliberal capitalism,
readers would have also benefited from a discussion of potential
solutions to these problems.
The introductory essay by the editors, Anarchist Economics: A Holistic
View, discusses why anarchists oppose capitalism and the institution of
wage labor. The authors argue that anarchists generally accept a
traditional two-class analytical framework which divides people into two
categories: the working class and the ruling class. However, as the
authors point out, not everyone fits neatly into these categories, as
some have argued for the existence of a third class, such as the “the
middle class,” “the coordinator class,” “the techno-managerial class,”
etc. The editors then provide a brief overview of the three main
anarchist schools of thought: Mutualism (Proudhon), Collectivism
(Bakunin), and Communism (Kropotkin). Although the authors do a good job
of providing a brief overview of classical anarchism, their discussion
of Proudhon’s Mutualism is quite misleading. This is addressed later in
this review.
In Examining the History of Anarchist Economics to See the Future,
Spannos discusses key events in anarchist history. The essay is well
written, and Spannos’ decision to use Maurice Brinton’s account of how
the Bolsheviks dismantled workers’ control was a good choice. There is
not much discussion, however, of what role unions can or should play in
building a more emancipatory and liberatory society.
In Laying the Foundations: Proudhon’s Contribution to Anarchist
Economics, Iain McKay provides an excellent overview of Proudhon, making
a strong case for his continuing relevance. McKay’s essay is very useful
for first-time readers of Proudhon, with plenty of textual evidence.
However, I did not find McKay’s assertion that Marx’s account of
“exploitation” is essentially the same as Proudhon’s very convincing. As
I read him, Proudhon appears to be much more interested in theorizing in
terms of property, as opposed to Marx who puts forward a value-theoretic
critique of capitalism. For Proudhon, the value workers create is their
property [“the price is not sufficient: the labour of the workers has
created a value; now this value is their property” (McKay 2011, 114)]
Thus, what capitalists are really appropriating is workers’ property.
McKay’s assertion that “Proudhon was the first to expound many of the
key concepts of Marxist Economics” (68) is also not very convincing. If
McKay is suggesting that Proudhon came up with the notion of
“surplus-value” before Marx, then this point is not clearly established.
The problem for Proudhon, as I read him, is not that “workers [produce]
more value than they [receive] in wages” (66), rather that workers do
not enjoy the fruits of their labor. In other words, the problem is not
the size of the wage, rather that only capitalists profit from any
production opportunity undertaken even though the effort was a joint
collaboration between workers and capitalists.
McKay also interprets Proudhon to be an early proponent of what is known
in the Post-Keynesian school of thought as the “endogenous theory of
money.” (72) There are numerous problems with this assertion. First, the
problem with the “endogenous theory of money” is that its proponents use
a very different operating definition of “money” which, in my view,
obscures the way money and taxes actually function in capitalist
societies. According to the classical Quantity Theory of Money (Smith,
Ricardo), which Marx rejected, money is currency (cash), which serves
as 1) a measure of value and 2) a medium of exchange. Post-Keynesians
use a confusing conception of “money”. First, they define “money” as a
“unit-of-account”. Second, their definition of money is inclusive of
credit instruments and debt obligations (IOUs). This approach is
inimical to the medium of exchange character of money. On the question
of whether Proudhon was a proponent of the “endogenous theory of money,”
it is not immediately discernible from McKay’s comments whether this is
the case. Proudhon writes,
Indeed, in all possible societies, even communistic, there is need for a
measure of exchange, otherwise either the right of the producer, or that
of the consumer, is affected. Until values are generally constituted by
some method of association, there is need that one certain product,
selected from among all others, whose value seems to be the most
authentic, the best defined, the least alterable, and which combines
with this advantage durability and portability, be taken for the symbol,
that is to say, both for the instrument of circulation and the standard
of other values. (McKay 2011, 230. Emphasis Added)
Here we can see that Proudhon, following the Quantity Theory of Money,
thinks that money should be both “instrument of circulation” as well as
“the standard for other values.” This seems to suggest, contrary to
McKay, that Proudhon was not a proponent of the “endogenous theory of
money.” Nonetheless, McKay’s essay provides a very useful introduction
to Proudhon, while making a strong case that Kropotkin owes many ‘debts’
to Proudhon.
The essay Capitalism in the 2000s, by Volcano and Shannon is
problematic. It is unclear what differentiates “neoliberal capitalism”
from “non-neoliberal capitalism” and why this is relevant. The core
characteristic features of the neoliberal paradigm are not specified.
Although the authors do a good job scrutinizing the way globalization
occurs under capitalism, in some areas their discussion is not very
clear. They claim greater capital mobility has caused a “race to the
bottom.” (82) This is an empirical claim which depends crucially on
which part of the world you look at and what time period. They claim
workers are “forced to work for wages well below the standards set by
union victories in (over)developed countries.” (82) Perhaps this is true
of most developing countries, but what does greater capital mobility
have to do with this? Capitalists do not only seek low wages, they also
seek higher levels of productivity and higher rates of profit. The
authors are correct, however, that the discussion needs to shift from
“globalization” to a different kind of globalization. The authors also
discuss some polling data which appears to show increased interest in
“socialist alternatives.” (85) However, many of these attitudes are
contingent on the specific time period under examination. The victory of
Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, as well as the recent loss of
Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, indicates that conservative
attitudes remain fairly popular in the U.S. The victories of Modi in
India and Bolsanaro in Brazil, as well as other neo-fascists around the
world, suggest the global working-class has not been won over to
socialist ideas. The rest of the essay, however, does a good job
discussing many of the problems which arise under capitalism, such as
periodic crises, the feminization of poverty, and general ecological
unsustainability.
Fight to Win! Tools for Confronting Capital by Cochrane and Monaghan is
highly problematic. The major problem is that the authors recommend the
works of two radical institutionalist economists, Johnathan Nitzan and
Shimshon Bichler, who misrepresent Marx. For starters, it is unclear
what the authors mean by the notion of “Labor theory of value,” a term
which, in my view, does not accurately represent Marx’s value theory
(nor Ricardo’s or Smith’s). Indeed, the authors do not bother defining
the notion at all, it is simply presumed from the get-go that the term
is problematic. Then the authors introduce readers to the concept of
“Differential Accumulation” developed by Nitzan and Bichler. In their
books The Global Political Economy of Israel (2002) and Capital As Power
(2009), Nitzan and Bichler argue that capital is a “strategic power
institution,” and that “capital represents the complex assemblages of
assets under the control of particular capitalist entities, including
the means of production.” (98) For Nitzan and Bichler, accumulation of
capital represents the commodification of power, and claims of control
over social processes. Thus, Cochrane and Monaghan write, “given that
power can only be understood as a relation between two entities,
capitalists judge their accumulatory success in relative terms.” (99)
The writers use this concept to evaluate the success and failures of
three political-economic disruption campaigns: 1) Anti-sweatshop
targeting of Nike, 2) Take down SNC-Lavalin!, and 3) Stop Huntingdon
Animal Cruelty. Although these campaigns were successful in damaging
capitalist profits, they write, campaigns such as the anti-sweatshop
campaign “intentionally mimicked the hierarchical structure of the
corporations they targeted,” and their leadership structure “privileged
the type of male-dominated, competitive, and non-participatory
environments that anarchists are committed to eliminating.” (113)
Although Cochrane and Monaghan’s analysis is sharp and insightful,
readers should be aware that prominent Marx scholar Andrew Kliman has
debunked Nitzan and Bichler’s characterizations of Marx [see Value and
Crisis: Bichler and Nitzan versus Marx (2011)]. Moreover, Nitzan and
Bichler’s theoretical apparatus systematically neglects any discussion
of class.
The essay Escaping Capitalist Hegemony by Wright and Williams is very
interesting. The authors challenge the widely held belief that we live
in a “capitalist” world. Wright and Williams argue there is no such
thing as “capitalist hegemony” by pointing to already existing
non-capitalist economic spaces in contemporary society. By looking at
alternative forms of work, such as work that is non-exchanged and
non-monetized, or work that is monetized but not undertaken primarily
for profit-motivated purposes, Wright and Williams argue that
alternative non-capitalist economic practices are already prevalent in
western economies. However, the notion of “capitalism” is used very
loosely throughout the essay, obscuring the way capitalism actually
functions. Chapter 51 of Das Kapital provides useful criteria for
distinguishing capitalist modes of production from non-capitalist modes.
For Marx, there are two defining features of the capitalist mode of
production: production of commodities to satisfy human wants, and the
production of surplus value. Under this definition, virtually all of
what Wright and Williams are talking about, such as non-exchanged,
non-monetized work not undertaken primarily for profit-motivated
purposes, would fall within the purview of “capitalism.” This is not to
say such programs are undesirable, rather that they are not
“not-capitalist.” Furthermore, you cannot have “socialism” or
“not-capitalism” in one country. For instance, it is unreasonable to say
that Country A, such as China or Vietnam, is “socialist” or
“not-capitalist”, while these countries continue to trade and interact
with capitalist countries like the United States or Great Britain. This
assertion relies on a confusing conception of “capitalism.” Perhaps in
the future, there will be some overlap between capitalism and socialism
as there was between feudalism and capitalism, but we are nowhere near
the point where capitalism is coming to an end.
Asimakopoulos’ Globalized Contradictions of Capitalism and the
Imperative for Epochal Change argues that capitalism is destined to
collapse repeatedly unless the state uses violence to keep it in place.
(140) Asimakopoulos looks at SSA Theory developed by Kotz, McDonough and
Reich in their book Social Structures of Accumulation (1994). SSA
emphasizes the role of institutional arrangements on long-term economic
growth, as opposed to what Asimakopoulos calls
“deterministic-mechanistic Marxist economic theory.” (140) Asimakopoulos
examines the emergence of three regimes, financial regime, neoliberal
trade regime, and globally segmented labor markets, arguing that
hegemonic powers like the U.S. and the European Union are in a position
of global privilege. SSA theory incorporates neo-marxist perspectives
developed by Baran and Sweezy, in particular their ideas on
overproduction and underconsumption, as well as World-Systems Theory
developed by Andre Frank. The problem is that these perspectives shift
the discussion away from the exploitative relationship between
capitalists and workers, instead, looking at interactions among states,
like the U.S., or a conglomeration of states like the EU. Should
libertarian socialists express solidarity with “underprivileged” states
like India, China, Indonesia, etc.? Or should they express solidarity
with the international working-class? It is not the state which
appropriates surplus value from workers, rather it is capitalists. The
section on “The neoliberal trade regime” (144–146) is quite confusing.
Asimakopoulos spends a fair bit of time explaining the United States’
trade deficit with countries like Mexico and China, but it is unclear
why trade deficits are inherently undesirable. A trade deficit is only
half the picture, there is also a net inflow of capital from countries
that run trade surpluses with the U.S., such as China and Mexico. When
countries like China purchase U.S. securities like treasury bills, they
finance the government’s budget deficit and create employment
opportunities for workers in the U.S. Thus, Asimakopoulos presents an
incomplete picture of an interconnected world where current account
deficits are offset by capital account surpluses.
Hahnel’s essay The Economic Crisis and Libertarian Socialists does a
good job examining the United States’ lackluster response to the
2007–2008 financial crisis, and remains relevant in light of the
economic crises induced by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is important to
remember, however, that the Covid-19 recession is much bigger than the
Great Recession of 2007–2008. Although Hahnel does a good job of looking
at how the United States’ policy response to the crises was
insufficient, readers would have also benefited from a discussion of the
various ways in which the economy could have been restructured to be
made more democratic. Various conditions could have been attached to
firms that were bailed (GM, Chrysler), such as more representation on
the board of directors, increasing worker-equity through policies like
employee stock ownership plans, maximum wages for CEOs, and other such
policies to make the workplace more equitable and democratic.
In their essay, Education’s Diminishing Returns and Revolutionary
Potential in the United States and Beyond, Armaline and Armaline discuss
education policy, an important issue which is often neglected when
thinking about envisioning a new and better society. “The new generation
of workers, young adults, and graduates face a difficult economic
climate—all amidst rising costs for education, credit, general costs of
living, and record levels of national debt. As it seems, many will enter
the employment market carrying significant debt in comparison to
previous generations.” (180–181) The authors argue that school in many
ways remains a “false promise”, as it not only reproduces inequalities
along the lines of race, class and gender (183), but also maintains and
perpetuates global capitalism, since “public education is often a
mechanism to produce new generations of workers socialized for their
inclusion, typically as wage slaves, in the larger political economy.”
(183) Indeed, schools are coercive institutions which teach students to
conform to social, cultural and occupational hierarchies, rather than
“rather than critical independent thought necessary for personal
autonomy and democratic societies” (183). Many working-class students
perceive school to be irrelevant to “real life.” (186) Overall, the
authors do an outstanding job in criticizing the current state of public
education and pointing to some ways forward.
Gordon’s essay, Anarchist Economics in Practice, is also well-written
and very useful. Gordon provides an important discussion of actual
economic practices undertaken by anarchists, including abstention,
anarchist unions, workplace and university occupations, cooperatives and
communes, local currencies, Food Not Bombs, Free shops (“gift
economies”), DIY cultural production, and the electronic commons. As
Gordon writes, many of these practices are prefigurative, that is, the
methods by which these practices are undertaken aim to exemplify the
type of future society anarchists strive towards. However, as Gordon
writes, some practices such as local currency exchanges are not
sufficiently prefigurative:
Some readers may object to the inclusion of certain examples, which,
they may argue, do not in fact qualify as anarchist. Alternative
currencies and workers’ cooperatives, for example, would receive
criticism from anarcho-communists since they retain, respectively, the
use of symbolic means of exchange and the payment of wages. Thus they
are not only islands inside capitalism, but also not sufficiently
prefigurative of an anarchist-communist society— one in which there are
no wages, and products are not exchanged but distributed according to
need. (204–205)
Gordon also provides a useful discussion of revolutionary strategy. He
differentiates between three different outlooks: 1) constructive direct
action, 2) propaganda by the deed, 3) and the politics of collapse.
Indeed, as Gordon writes, “Constructive direct action means that
anarchists who seek a world based on different social relations
undertake their construction by themselves. On such an account, for
social change to be successful, the modes of organization that will
replace capitalism, the state, patriarchy, and so on must be prepared
and developed alongside (though not instead of) the attack on present
institutions.” (213) It is important to realize, as Gordon notes, that
“anarchist economic practices ultimately function within rather than
outside capitalism,” and so “are by no means entirely detached from the
capitalist economy.” (213) With respect to “propaganda of the deed,”
readers would have benefited from an explicit definition of the phrase.
As Gordon writes, the term has often been associated with destruction
and violence. However, its origins are quite different, and if one
interprets the term (as Gordon does) as “the actual implementation and
display of anarchist social relations” (214) then the term
“prefigurative politics” captures the essence of this phrase without any
of its negative connotations. In that respect, his discussion of
“propaganda of the deed” is redundant. Gordon’s discussion of “the
politics of collapse” also merits close attention. Gordon’s rhetoric
towards the end comes across as alarmist. He writes, “the converging
crises of the twenty-first century—climate change, financial meltdown,
and the imminent peak in oil production—may be the only hope for
large-scale social transformation.” (216, emphasis added) This type of
rhetoric has a tendency to dissuade activists from using their agency to
bring changes to the world. It conveys a sense of inevitability, that
things in the world occur due to the immutable “internal logic” of
institutions. This perspective denies the role of human agency which can
be used to create alternatives and bring changes to the world. The
actions of institutions, such as corporations that pollute the
environment, cannot be detached from the role humans played in enabling
them.
Readers will experience difficulties in understanding Kaltefleiter’s
essay. Kaltefleiter’s Currency and Café Anarchy is about money and
currency, but the basic issue is Kaltefleiter’s decision to use a theory
by Stuart Hall known as the encoding/decoding model of communication.
The theory, in my view, is unnecessarily complicated and not very useful
in this context. Money is an instrument that the ruling class uses to
subordinate workers. The question of how to encode or decode texts is,
in my view, a distraction. Furthermore, Kaltefleiter does not provide
readers with terminology that is adequately defined. As an example,
Kaltefleiter writes,
Popular and scholarly understandings of money tend to share some common
traits found in narratives of globalization and modernity dyads.
Cultural anthropologist Faidra Papavasiliou argues that money is a
“fact,” a reality that almost assumes the status of an agent, an agent
that is increasingly unified and uniform across sociocultural,
political, and economic boundaries. (226, emphasis added)
There is some interesting discussion of alternative forms of currency
(mediums of exchange), such as the Ithaca HOURS system in Ithaca, New
York. However, some of Kaltefleiter’s statements are prone to
misinterpretation. For instance,
The capitalist agenda contributes to what Heidegger referred to as the
loss of any meaningful distinction between “nearness” and “distance” and
contributes to a leveling down of human experience, which in turn spawns
an indifference that renders human experience monotonous and
one-dimensional. It is within this space of one-dimensionality that a
sense of community is lost unless local citizens take responsibilities
for charting their own forms of social change. (229, emphasis added)
One could misinterpret the sentence highlighted above as an injunction
to pursue ethno-centric policies. Local communities should assert
themselves, but only in the context of a wider project which calls for
solidarity with the global working-class. Finally, Kaltefleiter fails to
discuss some key issues like how debt is used as a system of bondage by
capitalists, or what remuneration of work would look like in a
post-capitalist society.
Occupy, Resist, Produce! Lessons from Latin America’s Occupied Factories
by Marie Trigona looks at movements across Latin America to occupy
factories and other places of work through direct action. Many of these
occupations occurred in Argentina, spreading in the wake of the
financial crisis of 2001. Trigona writes, “In Argentina, more than
13,000 people work in occupied factories and businesses, otherwise known
as recuperated enterprises.” (238). The occupation of BAUEN Hotel is
discussed in great detail, as is the occupation of FASINPAT, a ceramic
tile factory. Overall, Trigona does an excellent job highlighting
successful experiences of worker control. Indeed, as Trigona writes,
workplace occupations “provide a liberatory vision by sowing the seeds
for a new society today,” and by “challenging market systems of
domination, and questioning the legitimacy of private property.” (240)
Ernesto Aguilar’s essay, Call It an Uprising: People of Color and the
Third World Organize against Capitalism, is deficient in many respects.
The essay does not have an underlying thesis; rather there is a topic of
discussion: “the response of people of color to capitalism.” (257)
Moreover, Aguilar barely mentions classical anarchists (Proudhon,
Bakunin, Kropotkin), instead relying heavily on Marxists like István
Mészáros, C.L.R James, Vijay Prashad, etc. Aguilar writes,
As a movement that aims for libertarian socialism, anarchism must
account for the experiences of people of color because of their unique
role in (sometimes forcibly) building modern capitalism, as well as
maintaining it. Further, as a movement that aims to abolish all
hierarchical authority, anarchism requires an analysis of colonialism,
imperialism, and white supremacy in order to live up to its own aims.
Unfortunately, in much anarchist theorizing and movement building this
is notably absent. (258)
But how is “anarchism,” an ideology which includes a wide-ranging set of
ideas (from the Egoism/Individualism of Stirner to the Collectivism of
Bakunin), inattentive or inimical to “colonialism, imperialism and white
supremacy”? Aguilar doesn’t provide a sufficient justification. Instead,
Aguilar simply moves on to a different topic, globalization. Perhaps the
only unifying theme in Aguilar’s essay is the concept of “dignidad,” the
Spanish word for dignity. But dignity in relation to what? The
workplace? Race? Class? Aguilar is correct that many people of color
continue to fight against capitalism. But some of these people are also
reactionaries who do not want anything to do with socialism.
Furthermore, if states in the Global South such as Venezuela, Ecuador or
India, challenge the global hegemony of the U.S., it would be irrational
to interpret this as the people of those countries fighting against the
imperialism of The West. Thus, if (former) heads of states like Rafael
Correa challenge the legitimacy of Ecuador’s debts or reject U.S. trade
agreements, it does not follow that “people of color are challenging
capitalism and oppression.” (268)
Towards the end, Aguilar writes, “Radical white revolutionary tendencies
such as First World socialism and anarchism have not adequately
responded to the ways people of color and the Third World have taken on
capitalism.” He continues, “one of Marxism’s most stunning failures, and
a major obstacle to relevance beyond shorthand in the new millennium,
has been a chronic inability to understand race and to dismiss racial
oppression in favor of economism and reductionism. Such critiques
paradoxically reduce race and gender to personal identity and
competitors to class, thus missing their material basis and the ways
they intersect with class.” (270) One could argue that this is the case.
However, it is hardly reasonable to suggest that all Marxists uniformly
are economistic and reductionists. If anything, the shortcomings of some
Marxists warrant a more integrated approach to issues of “race” and
“class,” which Aguilar fails to offer.
Shannon’s essay, Chopping Off the Invisible Hand: Internal Problems with
Markets and Anarchist Theory, Strategy, and Vision, also suffers from
numerous drawbacks. Shannon argues that Proudhon’s Mutualism is
essentially a market form of socialism. While one can certainly
interpret Proudhon in this manner, Shannon does not provide textual
evidence to establish this claim. Instead Shannon assumes that this is
the case, and writes “Proudhon envisioned a world where these
worker-owned and self-managed firms would compete in a stateless
market—a socialist market that was regulated by a grand agro-industrial
federation.” (276) Relying heavily on Kevin Carson’s erroneous
presentation of Proudhon, Shannon argues that “expropriation of
surplus-value cannot occur without state coercion.” (277–278) This
statement is problematic on numerous grounds. On the one hand,
capitalists appropriate surplus value produced by workers, not
“expropriate.” On the other hand, it is not immediately clear that
Proudhon uses the same conception of exploitation as Marx. As mentioned
previously, I interpret Proudhon to be putting forward a
property-theoretic critique of capitalism. By contrast, Marx presents a
value-theoretic critique. For Proudhon, the value workers produce, is
their property. When capitalists unjustly appropriate additional value
produced by workers, Proudhon uses the term “collective force.” (67)
Unfortunately, Shannon relies heavily on the secondary literature: Kevin
Carson, Benjamin Tucker, Martin and Barrot. Shannon also unconvincingly
argues, following Joseph Kay, that cooperatives “as a demand under
capitalism” suffer from “self-exploitation.” (282) Shannon fails to make
a convincing argument, however, as his earlier discussion of Proudhon’s
conception of “exploitation” is based on Carson’s erroneous rendering of
Proudhon.
In Ditching Class: The Praxis of Anarchist Communist Economics, Nappolos
argues that the abolition of class exploitation should be the foundation
of any future socialist economy. He argues that libertarian communist
economics has the following four defining features: 1) A commitment to a
future economy based on the praxis of the revolutionary working class
and popular classes, 2) An economy based on the destruction of the wage
system of labor, and a de-linking of the value of labor in production
from the distribution of society’s wealth to its members, 3) Collective
control and management of the entire economy by the direct control of
workers and community members united in a council system of direct
democracy, 4) The abolition of intermediary institutions of power
governing the economy. (292) Nappolos discusses the concept of
“prescriptive economics,” which he defines as “attempts to lay out a
vision, in our case, of a post-capitalist economic system based on some
core values,” (292) and “praxis”, which Paulo Freire defined as
“reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.” (293)
Nappolos writes, “Libertarian communist prescriptive economics has then
been shaped by belief in the potential leadership of the working class
and popular classes, and the commitment to prescriptive economics
reflecting both a strategy for achieving such an economy and a theory
which reflects our experiences in struggle.” (293)
Nappolos also discusses the experience of small and large scale
Libertarian Communist projects, such as Hungary in 1956, Ukrainian
communes under Nestor Makhno, Zapatistas, Argentinian factory seizures,
Israeli Kibbutz, as well as anarcho-syndicalists during the Spanish
Revolution. (294–296) He discusses the role of Gaston Leval, a Spanish
anarchist who participated in revolutionary communes across Spain.
Nappolos does a good job discussing the ways in which Spanish anarchists
realized their vision of a future egalitarian society in the very
methods they undertook to carry out their revolution. (297–300) With
respect to how distribution of goods in a libertarian communist society
might occur, Nappolos distinguishes between planned communist economies,
and emergent economies. Whereas in planned economies the distribution of
goods occurs through planned production, in an emergent economy,
distribution “relies on intuitions and lessons from seeing society as an
interdependent, living, and complex, organism-like body” (303) “The
motivation for this position,” argues Nappolos, “arises from two
sources. First there is a suspicion here about our ability to plan
successfully, consciously, and explicitly a full economy; and secondly
there is both support for and historical antecedents of a dynamic and
evolving form of self-planning in a communist society.” (303)
Toward the end, however, Nappolos runs into trouble:
During the Hungarian and Spanish revolutions, people were able to take
over the economy and in some instances in a very rapid period of time
convert existing production for private profit into a collectivized
economy for common use. This occurred initially outside of any single
unified planning apparatus. Distribution evolved out of countless
actions of individuals and groups which came to unify and reorganize to
meet the demands presented by the wars and communities. This isn’t to
say there wasn’t organization, but to say there is a difference between
organization that is structurally and historically open and has the
ability to produce emergent and evolving structure, versus extensively
planned organization that is predictive and fairly static. There is
little evidence to point to people living under such conditions guiding
their activities by adhering to such programs. We can understand the
activity of an economy as emergent out of problem-solving at countless
levels, and producing stability once equilibrium can be reached. This is
a problem that is unfortunately hidden from these discussions: how to
obtain equilibrium in a revolutionary context is in many ways a more
significant problem than that of abstract models of potential futures.
(303, emphasis added)
What does it mean to reach an “equilibrium” in a “revolutionary
context”? “Equilibrium” as a theoretical concept does not belong to
classical economics (Smith, Ricardo, Marx; rather it has been
popularized by neoclassical economists, but many proponents of classical
political economy feel it is not very useful. In fact, I would argue
that it is obscurantist, since it misrepresents relations of
exploitation based on one’s class position. How can there be an
“equilibrium,” “balance” or “stability” with respect to class
exploitation? Moreover, in his “critique of the wage system” Nappolos
misinterprets the fundamental issue with wage-labor. While he is correct
that communists reject wage-labor, the issue is not unfair remuneration
for work done, i.e. the problem is not is the magnitude of wages
$100/hour vs $1/hour. Rather, it is a matter of ending the hierarchical
and exploitative arrangement between bosses and workers. Under
capitalism, labor-power is commodified and treated as private property.
Capitalists have a monopoly on deriving use-value from labor-power by
virtue of their class position, workers cannot do the same. Workers must
sell their labor-power for the sake of their livelihood. Capitalists, on
the other hand, use the labor-power of workers to make profits, thereby
further enriching themselves. The objective is to eliminate this
asymmetry in one’s relationship to private property. Furthermore,
Nappolos fails to discuss workers’ control of the means of production.
Decision-making in large capitalist firms is highly centralized, falling
within the purview of the board of directors. These decisions are then
handed down to subordinates, who enjoy some degree of independence, but
nevertheless are compelled to follow directives from above. Will these
hierarchical and authoritarian social relationships exist in a
Libertarian Communist society?
Wayne Price’s essay, The Anarchist Method: An Experimental Approach to
Post-Capitalist Economies, addresses the question of what a libertarian
socialist economy might look like, and what method to pursue in order to
realize this objective. Price distinguishes the “anarchist method” from
the Utopian-Moral approach – exemplified by Saint-Simon, Robert Owen,
Fourier, Cabet, Proudhon – to the Marxist-Determinist approach,
exemplified by Marx and Engels. Price classifies Parecon (“participatory
economics”) as a part of the Utopian-Moral approach. Price argues that
the advantages of utopian models is that “[thinkers] start with a set of
moral values by which the present society may be condemned”, then move
on to “envision social institutions which could embody these values.”
(313) In other words, Utopian-Moral methods such as Parecon “offer a
yardstick by which to judge potential economies, as well as real ones,
so that radicals do not claim to be for freedom but accept some
totalitarian monstrosity.” (313) However, with the exception of Parecon,
Price argues that “historic utopian models were very undemocratic in
structure.” (314) Moreover, Price argues, “there is a problem in that
the utopian approach starts from values rather than from an analysis of
how capitalist society functions”, that is, “There is really no
necessary connection between any particular model and the dynamics of
capitalism (besides the moral critique).” (314) Furthermore, “The
visions of the possible futures do not point to any strategies for
getting to these futures”; “A program that does not say whether to be
revolutionary or reformist is not much of a guide to action.” (314)
Price contrasts the Utopian-moral method to the Marxist-Determinist
approach, as expounded by Marx and Engels. For the “original Marxists,”
Price argues, it was “necessary to analyze how capitalism was
developing, including its main drive mechanism: the capital-labor
relationship in production.” (314) The working-class revolution
“provided the basis of a strategy” and “indicated the emergence of a new
society out of that revolution.” (314) For Marx and Engels, Price
argues, the nature of this new society was only mentioned in passing
remarks, such as a few paragraphs in Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha
Program.” (314) For instance, Marx argued that workers would initially
be paid with “labor credits” and later be provided with goods freely
upon need. (315) “The goal of Marx and Engels,” writes Price, “was not
to implement a new social system.” Rather, “It was to see that the
working class overthrew the capitalist class and took power for itself.
Once this happened, the historical process would take care of further
social development.” (315) The advantage of the Marxist-Determinist
method for Price is that it is grounded in economic theory. He writes,
“It has an analysis of what forces are moving in the direction of a new
society and what ones are blocking them.” Furthermore, he writes, “It
leads to a strategy that identifies a specific change agent (the working
class, leading other oppressed groups).” (315) On the other hand, Price
argues, the Marxist-Determinist method “has no moral standard.” He
writes,
So when Marxist-led revolutions produce state-capitalist
totalitarianisms that murder tens of millions of workers and peasants,
very many Marxists support this as the result of the historical process
which has created “actually existing socialism.” Marx and Engels would
undoubtedly have been horrified by what developed in the Soviet Union
and other so-called communist countries. But a method without a moral
standard made it difficult for Marxists to not support these states.
(315)
Price contrasts both of these approaches with the “anarchist method,”
which, he writes, “starts from the doubt that every region and national
culture will choose the same version of libertarian socialist society.”
(316) As Malatesta writes, there will not be ‘one solution’, rather “a
thousand different and changing solutions in the same way as social
existence is different and varied in time and space.” (316)
Nevertheless, solutions tried must be non-exploitative and
non-oppressive. In other words, “they must ‘prevent the constitution and
consolidation of new privilege’ and ‘leave the way open for future
improvements.’” (317) Differing models of post-capitalist societies,
however, raises a different set of issues. One problem which Price
identifies is the method of coordination in the post-capitalist economy.
How will resources be distributed across the economy? Price points to
three proposals: a market, central-planning, and some sort of
non-centralized planning. (318) “In a pluralist, experimental,
post-capitalist world” writes Price, “different regions might experiment
with different types of economic coordination.” (319) Another issue
identified by Price, is the size of the economic unit. Price writes,
As internationalists, we are aware that the world is being knit together
by imperialist globalization. At the same time we know that much of this
worldwide centralization is not due to technical needs but to the need
of capitalists to control natural resources, to dominate world markets,
and to exploit the poorest workers in order to make the biggest profits.
To end the rule of states and bureaucracies, anarchists want as much as
possible of local, face-to-face democracy. This requires a degree of
economic decentralization. Indeed, any sort of economic planning would
be easier, and easier to make democratic, the smaller the units. Finally
it would also be easier to keep production and consumption in balance
with nature, the smaller the units are. (319)
Another issue discussed by Price, is that of technology. “Just as is
true of economic institutions,” writes Price, “productive technology
would have to be flexible, pluralistic, and experimental.” (320)
“Machinery and the methodology of production have been organized by the
processes of capitalism (and militarism) to serve its interests.
Technology would have to be completely reorganized and redeveloped over
time to meet the needs of a new society.” (320) Another key question is
reward for work. “In a fully communist society,” writes Price, “work
would be done only for the pleasure of doing it, or because people feel
a duty, or because of social pressure.” Price continues, “consumption
will be a right, based only on human need and unrelated to effort.”
(321) The rest of the essay discusses a “transitional society.”
(322–323) As Price notes, the notion of a ‘transitional society’ has
been used to justify all sorts of horrors for Stalinist totalitarian
dictatorships. (323) As Price writes, “This is not what Bakunin, or even
Marx, had in mind. It shows the need for a vision with moral values to
judge a new society.” He continues, “Neither Marx nor Bakunin/Guillaume
proposed a mechanism for going from a transitional phase to full
communism. One possibility might be to use the idea of a split economy
(a basic communism and a non-basic needs sector). As productivity grows,
the free communist sector might be deliberately expanded, until it
gradually includes all (or most) of the economy.” (323)
There are numerous issues with Price’s essay. First, Price fails to
distinguish a capitalist system from a non-capitalist system. What is a
“capitalist” system? (See my critique of the essay Escaping Capitalist
Hegemony by Wright and Williams above.) Furthermore, as someone who
identifies as an anarchist, I am not in agreement with Marx’s conception
of “the first phase of a communist society.” Marx’s position on the
legitimacy of the state has always been ambiguous. Can a society in
which harmful instrumentalization of the state persists be characterized
as “communist”? I and many other anarchists would say no. Furthermore,
it is necessary to draw a distinction between “the first phase of a
communist society” vs a “transitional society,” which are not the same
thing. The notion of a “transitional society” is in many ways a Leninist
concept, which I reject. In my reading of Marx, I have not come across
any discussion of a “transitional society,” but rather a direct
transition from capitalism to socialism vis a vis a proletarian
revolution. Marxists have, in my view, erroneously interpreted Marx as a
proponent of a so-called “transitional society.” The essential point is
that many people on the left find the concept of an intermediate
“transitional society” to be highly objectionable. We should strive for
a socialist society, not a “transitional society.”
The final essay by Albert, Porous Borders of Anarchist Vision and
Strategy, discusses participatory economics, or “Parecon,” which Albert
helped develop in tandem with Robin Hahnel. Albert argues an anarchist
society would forbid the systematic privileging of some people
materially or socially over others. He writes, “in an anarchist society
citizens should freely fulfill themselves without being systematically
subordinate to or systematically superior to other citizens. We should
each benefit from the same structural opportunities. We should each gain
from the gains others enjoy.” (327) Albert writes, while an anarchist
society should rule certain institutions out, freedom to own slaves, or
the freedom to hire wage-slaves, it should also rule in social
components deemed anarchistic. According to Albert, a positive
institutional vision would allow people to “have the information,
circumstances, inclinations, opportunity, and even the responsibility to
creatively and knowledgeably self-manage their own situations.” (329)
Albert argues that the first value which a future anarchist economy
should embody is that “people should have a say in decisions
proportionate to the degree those decisions affect them.” (329) Second,
“citizens should have a claim on society’s economic product that
increases if they do socially valued work longer, more intensely, or
under worse conditions.” (330) Third, “people should care about one
another’s well being rather than each of us trampling the rest or at the
least turning the other cheek to others’ difficulties.” (330) Fourth,
“people should have a wide range of options available and that when
making choices, diverse paths forward should be kept available or
experimented with.” (330) The fifth and sixth values, are that
humans and the rest of the environment ultimately constitute an entwined
community in which humans have to take responsibility not only for the
impact of our choices on ourselves but also on the rest of nature’s
domain – and, in turn, efficiency is the related idea that economic
activity should produce what people seek for fulfillment and development
without wasting assets we value, while furthering self-management,
equity, solidarity, diversity, and husbandry. (330)
Albert argues that an anarchist economic vision should propose specific
institutions because worthy economic values are essential but are not
convincing by themselves. In other words, people’s skepticism cannot
solely be dispelled by asserting worthy values; we must also “describe
institutions consistent with those preferred values.” Furthermore,
Albert argues, “values alone do not provide needed orientation for
strategy and tactics.” He writes, “Institutional insights that move us
toward effective strategic choices need to be shared and built upon,
rather than each actor having to start over repeatedly as if no one had
traveled similar ground before.” Thus, “parecon proposes a minimalist
institutional vision for establishing economic conditions that will
permit future people to self manage their own economic lives while also
being sufficient to overcome cynicism and inform strategy.” (331) A
potential minimalist structure for addressing equitable remuneration and
work apportionment are Balanced Job Complexes.
Moreover, Parecon thinks that economic allocation should occur according
to participatory planning, that is, “cooperative negotiation of economic
inputs and outputs by nested, self-managing workers’ and consumers’
councils.” (336) Albert rejects a pluralist approach, that is, a society
where economic allocation is based on a mixture of markets,
central-planning and participatory planning, since “If there are two,
three, or more different methods for allocating items, then the same
items will have different and conflicting relative prices depending
which method of allocation is consulted, and there will also be
different and conflicting logic and associated implications for behavior
operating as well, and the contradictions will more often than not
disrupt viable operations.” (335) Second, “if we self-consciously, or
even just inadvertently, include either markets or central planning or
any combination of the two as our means of allocation in a future
economy, these structures will subvert our other libertarian values and
aspirations, just like including corporate divisions of labor would
subvert our agendas, or including top-down rule would subvert our
agendas, or including remuneration for property would subvert our
agendas.” Thus, an anarchist vision, according to Albert, should reject
market and centrally planned allocation.
On the question of an “Anarchist Strategy,” Albert supports democratic
centralism as an organizational principle, but only as a means of
facilitating the creation of participatory communes and fostering
popular power. Under complicated circumstances, such as in the “early
stages of a transition process seeking self-management throughout
society” or a situation where a country is in a massive project to bring
about structural transformation, Albert argues that democratic
centralism could be justified. (340–342) Albert concludes by addressing
the necessity to overcome “not only capitalist, but also coordinator
mentalities and structures in our own projects and in society writ
large.” (343) It is crucial to recognize, Albert writes, that “there is
no single virtuous or effective anarchist strategy such that one size
fits all.”
On balance, Accumulation does a satisfactory job of providing
non-Marxist socialist perspectives on important issues which the left
should be concerned with. However, many of the essays rely heavily on
what Marxists have to say, or use other people’s erroneous depictions of
classical anarchists. Marie Trigona’s essay was my favorite out of the
entire collection.