New here, and even though i've favored anarchist philosophy for a long time, i never discussed it with anybody else. So i thought i should ask around and get an idea of what the common ideas are. Specifically regarding economy and capitalism.
Premises, i'll try to keep it short:
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I believe we can agree that "people should be fairly/ethically rewarded for their labor" is a reasonable ideal, and that profit is a much greater barrier to that ideal than tax is. With tax, it's less ambigious if, where and when things "trickle down", and people get some (certainly much room for improvement) democratic (likewise) say in the matter.
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The capitalist economy obviously contradicts anarchist ideals of decentralization. Non-democratic and hardly meritocratic (chance and anti-competitive tactics) power is concentrated in the hands of a small elite, arguably more influential for our day-to-day lives than governments.
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Humans are imperfect - imperfectly aligned and imperfectly capable, - so one shouldn't give a human (or a body of humans) more authority/responsibility than is absolutely necessary, and do all that one can do to continuously ensure and audit their alignment and capability. As a political idea you're all very familiar with this, but i also extend it to economy.
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Capitalism does some job at allocating ("investing") labor and resources "intelligently" (using very generous wording), indirectly, into various measures of progress. It doesn't do the best job, very far from it, but i think any alternative one proposes should at least try to do a better job at converting labor and resources into improving everybody's quality of life.
There are some existing alternatives to convert labor. There is for example the concept of worker cooperatives (which could optionally be non-profit), which i find interesting.
But i don't see that by itself scale easily to national or even global level. Especially regarding the labor/resource allocation or "investment" aspect. I've spent a great deal trying to conceptualize an ethical, decentralized and also more effective (at converting labor and resources into quality of life) alternative to capitalism, but i don't feel like my thoughts are worth seriously sharing yet. As a very vague summary, think non-profit worker cooperatives + WIP decentralized, local-first hierarchial method of democratic crowd funding.
I'm curious to hear what thoughts and ideas you have on the subject. Also perhaps literature recommendations (please summarize).
That you for those recommendations.
I fully agree with you. That is one of the main problems in my own attempts to conceptualize an anarchist and intelligently labor/resource-allocating economy. When there is no tangible reward for investment, what motivates people to invest into local or shared projects? It should be a shared will to improve e.g. the standards of living of the community - whichever level of community (neighborhood, village, township, state, etc) is under consideration.
It should be obvious and expected, if we take a step back to consider what anarchism is generally about. Not all administration is optional, and in the absence of any some will emerge naturally in suboptiomal ways. Abolished centralized authority needs to replaced, it cannot just be removed, and the replacement favored by anarchists is voluntary cooperation and good will. But humans aren't saints, and the hard compromize to be made is in deciding what needs to be centralized and delegated (and how, and to whom).
And in the economy, it feels like every major attempt (to try something new) made by anybody so far has been a failure in at least some major way, including capitalism and communism.
I agree, and it's challenging to even theorize. It seems easier on the purely administrative end, and serious proposals have existed for a long time. The real challenge seems to be the economy, which is (or can be, as in the quasi-aristrocracy (if not political, then still in the control of resources and labor) that we live in) a quasi-administration.
I would say i find that very optimistic, but that is clearly also your point:
It's both inspiring but also disillusioning. It does seem like something impossible.
Education would be a great start, but i am doubtful it would be even near sufficient. Even under the strictest conditions, beyond education also nurture, indoctrination from a young age, i believe enough people would remain fallible and/or misguided to make a system that does not rely on authority stable long-term. That's the difficulty with ideal anarchism in general, is it not? But i'm not trying to counter hope and optimism, actually i'm trying to come up with a solution.
Our most ancient ancestors lived in, for the most part, big families. Authority didn't go much beyond basic family authority. Matriarchs and patriarchs, smart aunts and uncles, unruly young, each contributing will to a final decision, in different ratios depending on domain.
Why were no great kingdoms founded 100 thousand years ago? Why are even the largest settlements no larger than a handful of big families?
Apologies for letting a different ideology of mine seep into this problem, but perhaps one could culturally emulate, even if at just an abstract level, those conditions that prevented the emergence of large, central authority for hundreds of thousands of years before urbanization. Not outright primitivism, not if it can be helped. It's more of a psychological and behavioral investigation, really, and mostly just to augment different strategies.
Or perhaps the better solution is to just curb my expectations for anarchism, and accept a partial implementation for a start. Jeez, i'm already halfway towards primitivism again.