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Title: Notes on Anarchist Economics Author: Iain McKay Date: 2018 Language: en Topics: economics, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review Source: Retrieved on 28th January 2021 from https://syndicalist.us/2020/06/28/notes-on-anarchist-economics/ Notes: From Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #74, Summer 2018
Anarchism is generally not associated with economics. There is no
“anarchist” school of economics as there are “Marxist,” “Keynesian” and
so on ones. This does not mean there are no anarchist texts on
economics. Proudhon springs to mind here, with his numerous works on the
subject – the three volumes on property (most famous being the first,
What is Property?) and the two volumes of System of Economic
Contradictions (of which, only the first has been translated) – as does
Kropotkin, with his Fields, Factories and Workshops. However, in spite
of various important works, there is no well-established body of work
which can be called anarchist economics.
There are various reasons for this. Partly, it is due to the typical
isolation of the English-speaking movement: many works which could be
used to create an anarchist economics have never been translated into
English. Partly, it is due to an undeserved sense of inferiority: too
many anarchists have followed Marxists by taking Marx’s The Poverty of
Philosophy as an accurate account and honest critique of Proudhon’s
ideas (it is neither, as I show in “The Poverty of (Marx’s) Philosophy,”
Anarcho-Syndicalist Review 70). Partly, it is due to anarchists being –
in the main – working-class people who often do not have the time or
resources to do the necessary research – and more often, rightly, prefer
to change the world than interpret it, particularly given we wish to end
the exploitation and oppression we are subject to sooner rather than
later.
What would anarchist economics be? There are two different – if somewhat
interrelated – possibilities.
First, and least important, would be the economics of an anarchist
society. As such a society does not exist, this explains why it is the
least important. Adam Smith did not speculate about markets in theory,
he described them by observing their workings (I write “markets” rather
than “capitalism” as capitalism – wage labor – was not extensive when he
was writing and so he was describing an economy marked by substantial
self-employed artisans and farmers – an ideal which appealed to Smith).
So, in this sense, any anarchist economics would develop as an actual
anarchist society develops. Attempts to produce in detail now how a
libertarian socialist economy would function are misplaced. All that
systems like Parecon can show is that certain notions (such as detailed
planning) cannot and will not work – even if its advocates do not seem
to recognize this.
So all we can do if sketch general principles – self-management,
socio-economic federalism, etc. – and discuss how tendencies within
capitalism show their validity. This is important, as anarchists do not
abstractly compare the grim reality of capitalism to ideal visions.
Rather, as Proudhon stressed (and Kropotkin praised him for), we need to
analyze capitalism to understand it and to explore its tendencies –
including those tendencies which point beyond it.
Which brings us to the other, more relevant, form of anarchist
economics, which would be the analysis and critique of capitalism. The
two are interrelated, for what we oppose in capitalism would not exist
within an anarchist economy. So, for example, Proudhon’s analysis of
exploitation as occurring in production – because workers have sold
their liberty to the boss who keeps the “collective force” and “surplus
of labor” they create – points logically to workers’ cooperatives
(self-management) as the basis of a free economy. Unsurprisingly, he and
subsequent anarchists opposed associated labor to wage-labor.
Here we do have much to build on. Proudhon’s analysis of exploitation
predates Marx’s nearly identical one by two decades – ironically in 1847
Marx mocked the Frenchman for advocating what he later came to advocate
in 1867 (see my “Proudhon’s Constituted Value and the Myth of Labour
Notes,” Anarchist Studies 25:1). Other insights, including
methodological ones, can be drawn from his and Kropotkin’s contributions
– although much of it may need to be translated first.
This does not mean we cannot useful draw upon other schools. Marx, for
all his flaws, provided genuine insights into the workings of
capitalism. Keynes may have sought to save capitalism from itself, but
to do so he had to understand how it works and so is worth reading. The
post-Keynesian school, likewise, has a substantial amount of work which
would be of use in constructing an anarchist economics. (Steve Keen,
author of the excellent Debunking Economics, is a post-Keynesian.) Those
schools that have been developed – often explicitly so – to defend
capitalism (such as neo-classicalism) have little to offer, except
perhaps as examples of what not to do.
Which points to another key aspect of any anarchist economics: an
understanding of the flaws of other schools – particularly the
mainstream neo-classical school. It should help us see when we are being
lied to or when certain conclusions are based on preposterous
assumptions or models. The same applies to Marxist economics, which all
too often woefully mixes up empirical reality and explanatory
categories. As such, it would play a key role in intellectual
self-defense.
The key issue, though, is not to confuse understanding how capitalism
works from a libertarian perspective, an anarchist economics, with the
economics of an anarchy. So an anarchist economics in this sense is
still in its early days – even after over 150 years! – but there is a
foundation there which can be usefully built upon. The real question is,
how do we start? As Kropotkin suggests, by basing our analysis of
empirical evidence rather than the abstract model building of
neoclassical economics. We need to root our understanding of capitalism
in the reality of capitalism – and our struggles against it.
This is no trivial task – but one which would be of benefit.