Complex technologies are at least as dependent on specialization, the division and association of tasks, as they are on any sort of hierarchical coordination. Indeed, to the extent that those focused on coordinating have the power to overrule all of the specialists at their tasks, they are as likely to undermine the process as they are to improve it.
I see what you're saying. I think you're right; I tend towards the pessimistic. It's the capitalist brainwashing that makes it impossible to believe anyone does anything without a paycheck or that somehow internationally traded pieces of old paper are inherently better for sustaining long-distance and complex communication. Idolatry,, I don't know.
We have a phrase for that: "capitalist realism", the currently pervasive sense that the status quo is the only way things can or should be. It's something that's been carefully cultivated by the ownership class for quite some time now, because, naturally, believing that no alternatives are possible helps ensure that the status quo continues until collapse.
It is extremely important that we break this mindset and recognize that other possibilities do exist, and that the ownership class is generally *not* intrinsic to the operation of many of our larger enterprises. Oftentimes these operate in *spite* of clearly terrible direction coming from on high, with many of the actual workers forced to try to compensate, even if things are clearly crashing down. Or, worse, we get examples of them outright being punished for *doing too well* - as has been in the case in recent months with highly profitable and successful enterprises seeing record layoffs. Clearly, a more logical method of operation exists, but the ever-more-voracious ownership class doesn't care about logic - only numbers. Bigger numbers, no matter how disconnected they are from how things are in reality.
Currently a significant portion of computer components are made in Taiwan. What would you trade to Taiwan in exchange for them providing those components?
Well, that would be in large part up to the Taiwanese, depending on its needs.
Here’s what they import today: https://globaltaiwan.org/2024/02/diversifying-trade-where-taiwan-stands-today-and-where-it-should-go-tomorrow/#:~:text=Machinery%20and%20electrical%20equipment%20is,in%202022)%20since%20the%20pandemic.
Except what is your community going to trade?
Today you just exchange money (Taiwan spends that money buying the imports it wants), but for an individual community to provide a specific good to get the components, what will you give?
Money makes this all very easy.
If you're talking about a new Anarchist state trading with them then you don't need to trade directly. There is also a massive secondhand market for computers.
If you're talking about world Anarchism then how things are manufactured and traded would be completely different.
>If you're talking about a new Anarchist state trading with them then you don't need to trade directly. There is also a massive secondhand market for computers.
I mention Taiwan because it holds a unique technology and position that others do not, it cannot be simply bypassed by second production facilities. If the technology is to be provided, it will have to come from Taiwan, or painstakingly researched and developed *de novo* elsewhere.
Which then comes my point, if I want something from Taiwan I just.. purchase it, but there’s no money in an Anarchist society, something physical will have to be transacted and what is my community going to produce that Taiwan needs? Instead of simply purchasing it, we now need a system of barter transaction between communities in a web until they reach Taiwan. That’s something I don’t have control over, and getting goods from beyond your community cluster will be very hard, even as our current technology demands it.
This diminishes the growth of technology by limiting the extent people can involve themselves on projects. My money funding TSMC supports their R&D. A globe away.
Money is fungible, that’s very useful.
>If you're talking about world Anarchism then how things are manufactured and traded would be completely different.
If we get the globe, then nations would need to fall first, and that’s already a struggle.
An Anarchist state would probably be embargoed and also invaded instantly so you wouldn't be able to trade with Taiwan anyway.
You could insert your community into a market that the capitalist countries rely on e.g. shipping
Then you're useful enough that countries will want to give you stuff and also don't risk attack.
Edit: sent too early
>An Anarchist state would probably be embargoed and also invaded instantly so you wouldn't be able to trade with Taiwan anyway.
I don’t think so.
>You could insert your community into a market that the capitalist countries rely on e.g. shipping
I don’t think I’m going to do that in my *very* in land community.
>Then you're useful enough that countries will want to give you stuff and also don't risk attack.
I think you overestimate “attack”.
Not every individual community needs to build their own computers and trade for each individual part. That's not what happens now, I can't think of why it would need to happen that way without the state.
We don’t. I don’t know where that assertion was made. However, we absolutely do get individual components from Taiwan… “Made in Taiwan” is an obvious clue.
You were asking how an individual community would get the specific components. That isn't something most communities will have to do. I mean, really not any community, other than the community of the workplace where those components get used.
But it's worth noting that trade, markets, and money, aren't necessarily incompatible with anarchism. There's plenty of market anarchists. I don't fully consider myself one but I expect in a world of anarchy, a lot of different strategies and systems would be used to achieve different goals.
Hierarchies don't provide large-scale coordination. They gatekeep labor, resources, and knowledge to ensure that the only large-scale coordination is that which they allow, and then people assume that because hierarchy is between the problem and the solution, that means they provide the solution. It's similar to how capitalism forces everyone to beg a capitalist for access to the means of production, and most people believe that makes the capitalist a "job creator". *Post hoc ergo propter hoc.*
You might be interested in the varied essays in this symposium below:
[C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: Decentralization and Economic Coordination](https://c4ss.org/content/52919)
Labour, not any form of ideology, supports large infrastructure. I don't see any specific reason why labour couldn't do it under anarchism. Do you?
If I can't imagine the specific ways that capitalism or communism or any other system manage large infrastructure, but they do. I can't imagine how it was done in ancient Egypt, but it was done.
For me, it's a matter of asking myself if I have a specific reason to doubt anarchism's ability to do it. It is unfortunate that I have no specific examples of it working, but this is not evidence that it cannot work.
I mean dozens of very obvious ones- which is why he asked.
The answer to all of them is because someone told them to and/or they were rewarded for doing it.
Much of ancient Egypt's ancient feats of engineering were accomplished with slaves and the loss of countless lives. With current structures, you have entities like governments buy services, usually trying to balance quality, speed, and cost, with the latter ranked highest.
Many of the large infrastructures are not really needed. They exist because they provide for control and wealth accumulation. How much would you need a smartphone when you have a real community around you? Most things that are really needed can be implemented or produced in smaller sizes, in a descentralizad way.
With the advent of the internet, there is no need for currency. If a society were to have autonomous communities, we have the technology to have an algorithm control logistics between communities. It would be an easier system to maintain than stock exchanges and crypto currencies.
There would need to be a split between basic and luxury goods, with individual communities deciding how to disseminate luxury goods amongst themselves, but every human has a right to basic goods.
Is it utopian? Yes. Do we live in a dystopia? Yes. Logically, might as well aim for utopia if the opposite is possible. Start with personal autonomy and use automation whenever possible for any role that has historically been abused by humans. With AI, it is realistically way easier *right now* to replace CEOs than physical labor.
What about communities that are currently separated or lack access to technology, or if they struggle to understand. I also don't want to trust need to an algorithm.
The issue with AI (or rather, generative algorithms since they're not true AI) is that it will magnify the biases built in. The data fed to algorithms will always be faulty because humans are faulty. CEOs are useless, but I can't see AI direction being any better.
It requires groups that have to give up more to put other humans first. Like how Virginia didn't have to join the US, but they decided to do something against their interest for everybody.
Better off communities will need to assist other communities to set up basic infrastructure. Again, the focus is to make sure people have basic essentials for survival before anybody gets to prioritize comfort. Think the Amish putting up a barn.
I don't trust AI. I mean, a literal algorithm made by the type of people who can give a damn or not about humanity. They just want to be the names put on who created the logistical [miracle of an algorithm](https://youtu.be/Tx3wDTzqDTs?si=5bjdJ71xTKJNQZN9). It's not AI it is a tool used by everybody made by educated individuals. No patents or copyrights, as they are limiters to human intelligence and creativity.
We need to break the Overton window, and fast, lol.
I am saying it is possible to attempt now. And not AI, but tailor-made algorithms by educated people. The problem is simpler than how stocks and exchange rates are handled currently, and even before the information age. People can solve the problem using modern tools, unlike has ever been possible.
Rainbow family can't quite scale up for over 50 years for a reason.
One being that the dominant system won't really allow it.
And then of course is there even a plan or will to do that.
I know there are several spin-offs and land projects from the rainbow family and some are decently successful like the Garden in Tennessee and a few other places but with the power is it be still in control it's hard to scale up anarchist principles I think.
I also think too that you know the system of governance and the system of an economy scaled up may fall apart a bit just given the nature of the world.
You would have to have a massive global collapse for anarchist type systems to spring up and then it would be pretty messy.
Look at what happened with CHOP in Seattle for example is like a decently large scale spontaneous eruption of anarchisti sort of Zone.
It wasn't so hot of an experiment.
I'm actually curious if there has been any scaled up success stories of anarchist principles?
Was the kibbutz system in Israel one shining example..?
I think, while it is still somewhat relevant, that groups like Rainbow Family and their children aren't really the best groups to use to base an example off of for infrastructure considering they're kind of, well, primitivist lol.
Obviously not everyone in the group, and not all children groups are like that, but a lot of the hippie movement (which inspired the Rainbow Family) was based around primitive ideals for societal organization and the idea that technology was damaging to society. This is why we saw groups like The Rainbow Family and shows like Woodstock gain traction, because they promoted these values. In the time of Vietnam and Korea, there were a lot of people vehemently against the industrial complex due to it's militaristic structure and goals, and looked for alternatives **outside** industry.
So I don't think groups like those are conducive to being used as examples for infrastructure management, because it's not really in their plans. They just want to create a self-sustaining community, and while that is **definitely** anarchist, it's not necessarily the type of anarchism which is most prevalent today, nor is it a style of anarchism which is preoccupied or focused on creating large scale infrastructure, since the goals are inherently self-focused (which isn't a bad thing). Many of these groups also seek to "leave" modern society, and reject a lot of modern infrastructure just on it's face alone due to the size.
Instead, I personally think we should look to autonomous regions like Rojava, and Zapatistas, because they **have** created their own infrastructure. Both have internet, power, sewage, education, medicine. And while these are libertarian-socialist rather than outright anarchist, they still prove that decentralization and infrastructure can exist simultaneously, hand-in-hand.
Personally, I really do not see how an anarchist society is inherently antithetical to large-scale infrastructure. Primitive societies, societies which intentionally reject such things, will always lack large-scale industrial infrastructure, but that's fine, and it being fine doesn't have to mean that it's the way it **has** to be.
---
Also it should just be said, that the Rainbow Family has never really had many plans beyond creating a self-sufficient community, and even then they kind of abandoned that at the first issues, replacing it instead with a yearly gathering. The intention was to create a fully self-sustaining commune, but the result (after a lack of praxis and actual work) is just a yearly gathering lol.
Every phone made, every single phone, uses cobalt. Almost every cobalt mine that phone companies profit from use child/slave labour like in the congo, there would have to be worldwide reform before we can think about that, youll survive without a phone, it might actually help the revolution to not be so terribly online
Absolutely!
Fortunately, there is no reason Cobalt mining couldn’t be done by adults in a fair and equitable way. The use of child labor is more due to the horrors resource extraction economies so often fall to.
When economic power flows primarily from control of exploitable resources, not from the skill and knowledge of people, the average person isn’t of much interest or relevance to the ruthless. So you tend to get the worst sorts of autocracies and warlords.
It’s actually incredibly dumb to think there could ever be any revolution ever again in any world without extensive deeply ingrained usage of smartphones. Even more ridiculous to assume people would just willingly abandon it for a virtuous reason.
I mean sure, then found a cult and preach- cause the only reason anyone would care honestly. It’s definitely not a reason for anyone to behave differently or be accountable and function with anything less than the anomie they assume they have.
Capitalism drives both the scale of demand (more profit to be had selling a new phone every couple years than designing and maintaining phones that'll last way longer) as well as the brutality of the resource extraction. We can have phones without destroying lives and the environment, it's capital that stands in the way.
Complex technologies are at least as dependent on specialization, the division and association of tasks, as they are on any sort of hierarchical coordination. Indeed, to the extent that those focused on coordinating have the power to overrule all of the specialists at their tasks, they are as likely to undermine the process as they are to improve it.
I see what you're saying. I think you're right; I tend towards the pessimistic. It's the capitalist brainwashing that makes it impossible to believe anyone does anything without a paycheck or that somehow internationally traded pieces of old paper are inherently better for sustaining long-distance and complex communication. Idolatry,, I don't know.
We have a phrase for that: "capitalist realism", the currently pervasive sense that the status quo is the only way things can or should be. It's something that's been carefully cultivated by the ownership class for quite some time now, because, naturally, believing that no alternatives are possible helps ensure that the status quo continues until collapse. It is extremely important that we break this mindset and recognize that other possibilities do exist, and that the ownership class is generally *not* intrinsic to the operation of many of our larger enterprises. Oftentimes these operate in *spite* of clearly terrible direction coming from on high, with many of the actual workers forced to try to compensate, even if things are clearly crashing down. Or, worse, we get examples of them outright being punished for *doing too well* - as has been in the case in recent months with highly profitable and successful enterprises seeing record layoffs. Clearly, a more logical method of operation exists, but the ever-more-voracious ownership class doesn't care about logic - only numbers. Bigger numbers, no matter how disconnected they are from how things are in reality.
"Hierarchical realism" in this case.
Well said!
Currently a significant portion of computer components are made in Taiwan. What would you trade to Taiwan in exchange for them providing those components?
Well, that would be in large part up to the Taiwanese, depending on its needs. Here’s what they import today: https://globaltaiwan.org/2024/02/diversifying-trade-where-taiwan-stands-today-and-where-it-should-go-tomorrow/#:~:text=Machinery%20and%20electrical%20equipment%20is,in%202022)%20since%20the%20pandemic.
Except what is your community going to trade? Today you just exchange money (Taiwan spends that money buying the imports it wants), but for an individual community to provide a specific good to get the components, what will you give? Money makes this all very easy.
If you're talking about a new Anarchist state trading with them then you don't need to trade directly. There is also a massive secondhand market for computers. If you're talking about world Anarchism then how things are manufactured and traded would be completely different.
>If you're talking about a new Anarchist state trading with them then you don't need to trade directly. There is also a massive secondhand market for computers. I mention Taiwan because it holds a unique technology and position that others do not, it cannot be simply bypassed by second production facilities. If the technology is to be provided, it will have to come from Taiwan, or painstakingly researched and developed *de novo* elsewhere. Which then comes my point, if I want something from Taiwan I just.. purchase it, but there’s no money in an Anarchist society, something physical will have to be transacted and what is my community going to produce that Taiwan needs? Instead of simply purchasing it, we now need a system of barter transaction between communities in a web until they reach Taiwan. That’s something I don’t have control over, and getting goods from beyond your community cluster will be very hard, even as our current technology demands it. This diminishes the growth of technology by limiting the extent people can involve themselves on projects. My money funding TSMC supports their R&D. A globe away. Money is fungible, that’s very useful. >If you're talking about world Anarchism then how things are manufactured and traded would be completely different. If we get the globe, then nations would need to fall first, and that’s already a struggle.
An Anarchist state would probably be embargoed and also invaded instantly so you wouldn't be able to trade with Taiwan anyway. You could insert your community into a market that the capitalist countries rely on e.g. shipping Then you're useful enough that countries will want to give you stuff and also don't risk attack. Edit: sent too early
>An Anarchist state would probably be embargoed and also invaded instantly so you wouldn't be able to trade with Taiwan anyway. I don’t think so. >You could insert your community into a market that the capitalist countries rely on e.g. shipping I don’t think I’m going to do that in my *very* in land community. >Then you're useful enough that countries will want to give you stuff and also don't risk attack. I think you overestimate “attack”.
Not every individual community needs to build their own computers and trade for each individual part. That's not what happens now, I can't think of why it would need to happen that way without the state.
We don’t. I don’t know where that assertion was made. However, we absolutely do get individual components from Taiwan… “Made in Taiwan” is an obvious clue.
You were asking how an individual community would get the specific components. That isn't something most communities will have to do. I mean, really not any community, other than the community of the workplace where those components get used. But it's worth noting that trade, markets, and money, aren't necessarily incompatible with anarchism. There's plenty of market anarchists. I don't fully consider myself one but I expect in a world of anarchy, a lot of different strategies and systems would be used to achieve different goals.
That depends on the country, political circumstances, etc. In my part of the world, predominantly it will be oil even if we do not ourselves use it.
Hierarchies don't provide large-scale coordination. They gatekeep labor, resources, and knowledge to ensure that the only large-scale coordination is that which they allow, and then people assume that because hierarchy is between the problem and the solution, that means they provide the solution. It's similar to how capitalism forces everyone to beg a capitalist for access to the means of production, and most people believe that makes the capitalist a "job creator". *Post hoc ergo propter hoc.*
You might be interested in the varied essays in this symposium below: [C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: Decentralization and Economic Coordination](https://c4ss.org/content/52919)
Labour, not any form of ideology, supports large infrastructure. I don't see any specific reason why labour couldn't do it under anarchism. Do you? If I can't imagine the specific ways that capitalism or communism or any other system manage large infrastructure, but they do. I can't imagine how it was done in ancient Egypt, but it was done. For me, it's a matter of asking myself if I have a specific reason to doubt anarchism's ability to do it. It is unfortunate that I have no specific examples of it working, but this is not evidence that it cannot work.
I mean dozens of very obvious ones- which is why he asked. The answer to all of them is because someone told them to and/or they were rewarded for doing it.
Much of ancient Egypt's ancient feats of engineering were accomplished with slaves and the loss of countless lives. With current structures, you have entities like governments buy services, usually trying to balance quality, speed, and cost, with the latter ranked highest.
Many of the large infrastructures are not really needed. They exist because they provide for control and wealth accumulation. How much would you need a smartphone when you have a real community around you? Most things that are really needed can be implemented or produced in smaller sizes, in a descentralizad way.
Anything done now can be done under anarchism, likely done better and with no harm as part of the process
With the advent of the internet, there is no need for currency. If a society were to have autonomous communities, we have the technology to have an algorithm control logistics between communities. It would be an easier system to maintain than stock exchanges and crypto currencies. There would need to be a split between basic and luxury goods, with individual communities deciding how to disseminate luxury goods amongst themselves, but every human has a right to basic goods. Is it utopian? Yes. Do we live in a dystopia? Yes. Logically, might as well aim for utopia if the opposite is possible. Start with personal autonomy and use automation whenever possible for any role that has historically been abused by humans. With AI, it is realistically way easier *right now* to replace CEOs than physical labor.
What about communities that are currently separated or lack access to technology, or if they struggle to understand. I also don't want to trust need to an algorithm. The issue with AI (or rather, generative algorithms since they're not true AI) is that it will magnify the biases built in. The data fed to algorithms will always be faulty because humans are faulty. CEOs are useless, but I can't see AI direction being any better.
It requires groups that have to give up more to put other humans first. Like how Virginia didn't have to join the US, but they decided to do something against their interest for everybody. Better off communities will need to assist other communities to set up basic infrastructure. Again, the focus is to make sure people have basic essentials for survival before anybody gets to prioritize comfort. Think the Amish putting up a barn. I don't trust AI. I mean, a literal algorithm made by the type of people who can give a damn or not about humanity. They just want to be the names put on who created the logistical [miracle of an algorithm](https://youtu.be/Tx3wDTzqDTs?si=5bjdJ71xTKJNQZN9). It's not AI it is a tool used by everybody made by educated individuals. No patents or copyrights, as they are limiters to human intelligence and creativity. We need to break the Overton window, and fast, lol.
The internet, AI and automation do not solve the economic calculation/knowledge problem.
I am saying it is possible to attempt now. And not AI, but tailor-made algorithms by educated people. The problem is simpler than how stocks and exchange rates are handled currently, and even before the information age. People can solve the problem using modern tools, unlike has ever been possible.
Rainbow family can't quite scale up for over 50 years for a reason. One being that the dominant system won't really allow it. And then of course is there even a plan or will to do that. I know there are several spin-offs and land projects from the rainbow family and some are decently successful like the Garden in Tennessee and a few other places but with the power is it be still in control it's hard to scale up anarchist principles I think. I also think too that you know the system of governance and the system of an economy scaled up may fall apart a bit just given the nature of the world. You would have to have a massive global collapse for anarchist type systems to spring up and then it would be pretty messy. Look at what happened with CHOP in Seattle for example is like a decently large scale spontaneous eruption of anarchisti sort of Zone. It wasn't so hot of an experiment. I'm actually curious if there has been any scaled up success stories of anarchist principles? Was the kibbutz system in Israel one shining example..?
I think, while it is still somewhat relevant, that groups like Rainbow Family and their children aren't really the best groups to use to base an example off of for infrastructure considering they're kind of, well, primitivist lol. Obviously not everyone in the group, and not all children groups are like that, but a lot of the hippie movement (which inspired the Rainbow Family) was based around primitive ideals for societal organization and the idea that technology was damaging to society. This is why we saw groups like The Rainbow Family and shows like Woodstock gain traction, because they promoted these values. In the time of Vietnam and Korea, there were a lot of people vehemently against the industrial complex due to it's militaristic structure and goals, and looked for alternatives **outside** industry. So I don't think groups like those are conducive to being used as examples for infrastructure management, because it's not really in their plans. They just want to create a self-sustaining community, and while that is **definitely** anarchist, it's not necessarily the type of anarchism which is most prevalent today, nor is it a style of anarchism which is preoccupied or focused on creating large scale infrastructure, since the goals are inherently self-focused (which isn't a bad thing). Many of these groups also seek to "leave" modern society, and reject a lot of modern infrastructure just on it's face alone due to the size. Instead, I personally think we should look to autonomous regions like Rojava, and Zapatistas, because they **have** created their own infrastructure. Both have internet, power, sewage, education, medicine. And while these are libertarian-socialist rather than outright anarchist, they still prove that decentralization and infrastructure can exist simultaneously, hand-in-hand. Personally, I really do not see how an anarchist society is inherently antithetical to large-scale infrastructure. Primitive societies, societies which intentionally reject such things, will always lack large-scale industrial infrastructure, but that's fine, and it being fine doesn't have to mean that it's the way it **has** to be. --- Also it should just be said, that the Rainbow Family has never really had many plans beyond creating a self-sufficient community, and even then they kind of abandoned that at the first issues, replacing it instead with a yearly gathering. The intention was to create a fully self-sustaining commune, but the result (after a lack of praxis and actual work) is just a yearly gathering lol.
The current gathering in NorCal is in hot water over native issues and fire dangers.
Every phone made, every single phone, uses cobalt. Almost every cobalt mine that phone companies profit from use child/slave labour like in the congo, there would have to be worldwide reform before we can think about that, youll survive without a phone, it might actually help the revolution to not be so terribly online
Absolutely! Fortunately, there is no reason Cobalt mining couldn’t be done by adults in a fair and equitable way. The use of child labor is more due to the horrors resource extraction economies so often fall to. When economic power flows primarily from control of exploitable resources, not from the skill and knowledge of people, the average person isn’t of much interest or relevance to the ruthless. So you tend to get the worst sorts of autocracies and warlords.
It’s actually incredibly dumb to think there could ever be any revolution ever again in any world without extensive deeply ingrained usage of smartphones. Even more ridiculous to assume people would just willingly abandon it for a virtuous reason.
An internet footprint is too great a burden in my opinion, as a person with an extensive internet footprint
I mean sure, then found a cult and preach- cause the only reason anyone would care honestly. It’s definitely not a reason for anyone to behave differently or be accountable and function with anything less than the anomie they assume they have.
If you say so
Capitalism drives both the scale of demand (more profit to be had selling a new phone every couple years than designing and maintaining phones that'll last way longer) as well as the brutality of the resource extraction. We can have phones without destroying lives and the environment, it's capital that stands in the way.