BradSpangler.com

An edited version of a Facebook conversation…

the Critic:

“One issue I have with anarchist communists is their failure to reflect on the de facto power they can end up having, and their ability, by power of majority rule to start imposing on others. If you start producing economic networks of producers and consumers you start having power over others that can override their own autonomy by issuing pressure on them to conform to your standards. Not much opposition to that because again, free association. But if your little commune has a local monopoly, that’s a lot of power over others.”

the Anarchist Communist:

Communes are not mere geopolitical regions - they are economic networks of producers and consumers and they can exist in and outside geopolitical regions… Free association is the freedom to NOT associate with people you don’t want to associate with and the freedom TO associate with people you DO WANT to associate with… Show one example where a ‘monopoly’ held by anarcho-communists has any power to oppress someone into ‘conforming to [our] standards’.

the Agorist:

This would seem to be an instance in which a strict ‘free market’ analysis supports the anarchist communist position (as I understand the anarchist communist position, anyway).

That is, a ‘monopoly’ that arises and is maintained by strictly voluntary / non-invasive means can only be such if it is excelling at ‘customer’ (stakeholder in this case) satisfaction. Strictly speaking, it’s not really a ‘monopoly’ if there is no force-backed grant of state privilege.

Assuming you’re not anti-organization or anti-civ, there are going to be discrete particular groups that do different things in the production and distribution processes. An economist would call these groups ‘firms’ (regardless of how horizontalist they are internally or the matter of whether they relate to other firms via gifting or via conventional exchange).

The concern we’re replying to, as I understand it, is that a ‘monopoly’ in the colloquial sense of ‘the only X firm in town’ could be abusive in the sense of throwing its weight around without actually committing a direct act of aggression.

The word ‘anarchist’ in ‘anarchist communism’ indicates people would be free to start another X firm if they didn’t like the existing one. And, well (and I apologize if this sounds like nails on a chalkboard to communist ears) that’s ‘open competition’. That is, the nominal ‘monopoly’ in the colloqial sense is not a true monopoly if there is no state backed privilege discouraging or prohibiting competitors from arising. If the option is there to compete and nobody is making use of it (and assuming the ‘monopoly’ isn’t unjustly state subsidized or something like that), then it can only be in that ‘monopoly’ status if it’s doing a very good job of satisfying human desires.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 9:41 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.