First of all, allow me to quote myself here:
I believe all humans have the common goals of survival and exploring the true nature of existence. It's in our best interest to allow and help one another pursue these goals. And I do believe that unless we're conditioned by this seriously misguided society we have today, all humans are capable of internalizing and living by these thoughts.
And when you look at society like that, there's no need for property, there's no need for each individual fighting for their own survival. Everyone chasing one's own interest and profit leads to inequality and the lack of sense of fairness leads to envy and violence. It leads to working for rising to the top rather than working for the prosperity of all. It leads to competition rather than cooperation.
To be truly happy and free, I don't think you need what most people think you need.
And to respond to some of your points:
Communism - I don't see possible it's ideals without some form of state/government/body who makes decisions for all.
But that's exactly what anarcho communism is. All means of production are publicly owned, used by whoever needs them at the time. Everyone produces according to their own ability and in turn freely takes what they need.
I don't see why this would imply a state or any governing body. You can have ad-hoc associations of people working towards the same goal at the same time, they don't form a closed group by any means are not ruling over anyone.
who decides what my abilities are and what my needs are?
Each individual decides for themselves. When everything produced is free to take, there's no hierarchy, no money, no private property, there's no material means to measure the status of any individual.
Why would then anyone take more than they need? If anyone set aside a bunch of resources claiming it was their private property and vigorously defended it, it wouldn't get them any advantage. It wouldn't make them any happier, on the contrary. Watching their fellow human beings lack the resources in question would only sadden them.
As for production, it's quite similar. If anyone produced less than their ability and sense of fair share dictated, they would just feel like a leech and the group would collectively experience scarcity. Why on earth would that be desirable to anyone?
The only murky areas I see is what constitutes property.
Any means of production are owned collectively by everyone. Any personal property is respected. It's quite self-evident to me. Personal property is whatever you have on you at the time that is not a means of production for society. So for example, noone would take your clothes off you, or take your tissues out of your pocket.
Finally, let me give you an example of why I believe capitalism is a bad idea.
Let's say you live in an anarcho capitalist society. You have a farm, producing potatoes. Now, in a capitalist free market, you will sell your potatoes for money. Whoever needs potatoes will have to somehow earn money to exchange it for your potatoes. There are two ways to do that:
- You open your own business to sell products you produce. Now, first of all, this often requires capital, so you're back to square 1. And even (especially) if it doesn't need capital, you would probably face competition. Estabilished businesses will always have an advantage because they have more money (this is where the totally useless industries of marketing and advertisement come in). So forget it, to start out, you will probably not start a business to earn money.
- You can earn money by entering a contract with someone, selling for freedom for wage-labor. To me, this already contradicts anarchism, as you by contract give up your freedom and enter a hierarchical organization.
So simply by owning a farm and selling potatoes, you are already forcing others to give up their freedoom (enter wage-labor) for survival (to buy potatoes).
Then, as time goes on, you will yourself want to hire people to work on your farm, again robbing them of their freedom. Eventually, you yourself will not even be working on the farm, but employ others to produce potatoes on your farm. So you're simply reaping the rewards of the work of others. And at the same time, you will be using some of the money to compete with other farms, which is itself a complete waste of time, effort and resources when you look at society as a whole. All these lead me to believe that capitalism only leads to robbing each other of their freedom, hierarchical structures, unfair wealth distribution and wasted effort through competition.
Additionally, once you acquire enough capital from your single farm, you will want to invest it. You will probably buy one more farm, then the next, and so on. Others will be doing the same. In the end, all the land will be private property. You will not able to manage all that by yourself, so you will hire people to manage it for you. Since it's your private property, you will set all the rules: who is allowed to go in and out, who is allowed/expected to do what, and you will enter various contracts with other private land owners and enforce the rules if neccesary. And guess what that's called? State.
Let's go through the same situation in an anarcho communist society.
There's a farm. It's not owned by anyone, it's a means of production for society. Some people decide to produce potatoes due to need. Someone happens to enjoy cooking, so they produce meals from the potatoes. Someone has the expertise to work on automating the farm. They will work on that. And they will all take some of the produced the meals they need for survival for free. If there's a farm nearby, and more people are needed to produce enough potatoes, people will share their experience, teach each other the best practices they learned while producing potatoes. There's no competition, but cooperation. They realize the water source used for farming is too far away, and it's inefficient. Some people who are bored with farming and/or have the expertise will build water pipes. They don't need any capital for it, because whatever materials are required for the construction are free to take. And so on.
To me, the latter sounds more reasonable by far. Why do you think the first scenario is better?
This was a very good response. I think we are in very different time zones, I happened to climb out of bed and checked this (steemit is kind of addictive, which might be good for all of us). I am not very familiar with Anarcho-Communism and only spent limited time researching it to try to give you a promised reply. You have given me something to think about for sure. I'll likely respond tomorrow sometime after I've slept, read it again, and had anything to say. Also thank you for the civility, lack of condescension and all that other negative experience that sometimes comes with these debates. Thank you for responding to my invitation. I think if we can keep things civil like this for what are usually pretty heated topics we might be onto something here with this community. I prefer to debate with people like you that have a very different perspective from my own. I tend to learn the most in such exchanges. Thanks again, and I will try to respond tomorrow.
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Thanks for the invitation! Looking forward to your thoughts!
Also, for some sleepy rambling about the possibility of embedding these forms of society into one another, please see my response to @nativeskimo in this thread.
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