“Workers own the means of production” is, in fact, anarchist but I can understand freshly-minted anarchists get turned off the idea at first by tankies lol
Tankies think that the state should own the means of production. Sure, they’ll then claim that the workers own the state, but in reality it’s just owned by the political elite.
Ownership means control. If you own something, that means that you have control over it. Obviously with something as large as a country, most of what that asset produces will go into sustaining said asset. A factory owner doesn’t invest the full revenue of his enterprise into personal luxuries, he has to first pay all the running expenses.
And even then, that person doesn’t need to be fond of luxuries in order to still be an owner. I haven’t looked into what luxuries Stalin enjoyed and I don’t much care. My point is that he had power over everything in the country, and the proletariat had little power over the supposed “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Less centralized control. Lenin sowed the seeds for Stalinism when he centralized the political system after the revolution. Selfish actors seek power, and the selfless find themselves corrupted by it. The position being open for everyone just means that anyone can become a tyrant.
Bingo. If your hands aren’t operating the equipment on the daily, you shouldn’t get to (co)own it. Statism bleeding into work life is effectively diet capitalism.
Theory and reality are different things, absolutely - politics is labor. Whether that’s used for good or evil is separate. Politics also =/= statism, and nothing will ever be neatly cut and dry in the real world to fully divorce ourselves from these quandaries.
Re: statism, that’s very fair, and it was what you said. I think I was partially responding to the “political elite” comment you were also responding to.
Totally agree, we can only speak certainties about real-world conditions, and the tendency toward abstraction and hypotheticals IMO is sort of a negative tendency in many ways.
I keep writing more, but I don’t wanna get way in the weeds. Def appreciate the thoughtful response
Why not? Politics happens either way. There are going to be people who are more influential than others. name any famous anarchist, my favorite was Malatesta, and they were 100% absolutely engaged in political work.
Is it just that political work is okay until after the workers seize the means? IMO denying the necessity of political work as a means of suppressing the possibility of political domination of a minority, which is a real concern, drifts into authoritarianism almost instantly. Its just denying reality. Denying that political work is work is a political opinion. Enforcing it would be political work!
This is not a gotcha question, genuinely want to hear your opinion. I don’t think pointing out a contradiction is, on its own, a total invalidation of any given viewpoint. Contradictions are everywhere, people are contradictory.
Anarchy is more about dissolving ownership. Why would it be right to keep people out of a factory by force just because you work there?
If you have reason to believe they will cause direct or indirect harm, sure, but ownership is no indication of that. In fact production may be causing more harm than good, in which case it would be right to stop the factory’s operations, with force against the workers if necessary.
The beautiful thing about anarchism is it’s a space for hundreds of differing viewpoints (so long as they’re centered on non-hierarchical structures).
That said, I at no point mentioned force or violence in anarchist production ownership. Also where in my comment is there “keeping people out of a factory by force?” Having say over the day to day operations for the place you work is pretty typical of syndicalism, at least.
The beautiful thing about anarchism is it’s a space for hundreds of differing viewpoints (so long as they’re centered on non-hierarchical structures).
The beautiful thing of maths is that there are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1 but none of them are 2. Hierarchy of worker-owners over non-owners is unjust.
That said, I at no point mentioned force or violence in anarchist production ownership. Also where in my comment is there “keeping people out of a factory by force?”
What else do you mean by “owning” a thing? In capitalism, it means you socially deserve to have people punish others on your behalf for using it in a way you don’t consent to. Workers owning the means of production is contrasted against capital owners (bourgeoisie, aristocracy, church, etc.) owning the means of production; it doesn’t re-examine ownership as a relation.
This is why state capitalism is such a natural outcome of Marxist thought: people expected ownership to continue, so all they had to convince people of is that the state represents the workers now. Hence also the prometheanism of state capitalist nations; since workers own the land, exploitation is still natural and convenient.
Having say over the day to day operations for the place you work is pretty typical of syndicalism, at least.
Yeah, and syndicalists are often hierarchical towards scabs and non-workers.
When I say “ownership,” which is a messy word yes, I mean right to consensus on operations. There is no real world without pushback, so that probably does involve defense against forces looking to reclaim it in a capitalist capacity.
That doesn’t negate the rights of “outsiders” to also co-influence or join in a democratic fashion in the context of wider community.
I think, like in another sub-thread with another commenter, there is a fuzzy line between theory and reality that can get confused in anarchist discussions and that may have also happened here for both of us.
In genuine interest of further understanding your viewpoint (in a non-antagonistic way), how do you envision just and sustainable production in this context? What does fairness look like? How does it operate?
These aren’t rhetorical or “gotchas,” just interested in widening my perspective if you so choose to share your time :)
The phrase is usually used to refer to the social class of workers as a whole (the people who work to live), as opposed to the capitalist class who simply own things for their livelyhood.
“Workers own the means of production” is, in fact, anarchist but I can understand freshly-minted anarchists get turned off the idea at first by tankies lol
Tankies think that the state should own the means of production. Sure, they’ll then claim that the workers own the state, but in reality it’s just owned by the political elite.
Do they extract the same fraction of resources for their own pleasure? Did Stalin or others have car collections, horse stables or private islands?
Ownership means control. If you own something, that means that you have control over it. Obviously with something as large as a country, most of what that asset produces will go into sustaining said asset. A factory owner doesn’t invest the full revenue of his enterprise into personal luxuries, he has to first pay all the running expenses.
And even then, that person doesn’t need to be fond of luxuries in order to still be an owner. I haven’t looked into what luxuries Stalin enjoyed and I don’t much care. My point is that he had power over everything in the country, and the proletariat had little power over the supposed “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
How else would you do it? As long as everybody can join the party and rise in ranks I would say that it can’t be more open.
Less centralized control. Lenin sowed the seeds for Stalinism when he centralized the political system after the revolution. Selfish actors seek power, and the selfless find themselves corrupted by it. The position being open for everyone just means that anyone can become a tyrant.
How do you want to deal with the overhead of decentralization in case of war?
Bingo. If your hands aren’t operating the equipment on the daily, you shouldn’t get to (co)own it. Statism bleeding into work life is effectively diet capitalism.
Honest question: is political work a valid form of labor?
Theory and reality are different things, absolutely - politics is labor. Whether that’s used for good or evil is separate. Politics also =/= statism, and nothing will ever be neatly cut and dry in the real world to fully divorce ourselves from these quandaries.
Re: statism, that’s very fair, and it was what you said. I think I was partially responding to the “political elite” comment you were also responding to.
Totally agree, we can only speak certainties about real-world conditions, and the tendency toward abstraction and hypotheticals IMO is sort of a negative tendency in many ways.
I keep writing more, but I don’t wanna get way in the weeds. Def appreciate the thoughtful response
Honest personal opinion: Absolutely not.
Why not? Politics happens either way. There are going to be people who are more influential than others. name any famous anarchist, my favorite was Malatesta, and they were 100% absolutely engaged in political work.
Is it just that political work is okay until after the workers seize the means? IMO denying the necessity of political work as a means of suppressing the possibility of political domination of a minority, which is a real concern, drifts into authoritarianism almost instantly. Its just denying reality. Denying that political work is work is a political opinion. Enforcing it would be political work!
This is not a gotcha question, genuinely want to hear your opinion. I don’t think pointing out a contradiction is, on its own, a total invalidation of any given viewpoint. Contradictions are everywhere, people are contradictory.
Also that’s not my downvote, I don’t do that shi
Anarchy is more about dissolving ownership. Why would it be right to keep people out of a factory by force just because you work there?
If you have reason to believe they will cause direct or indirect harm, sure, but ownership is no indication of that. In fact production may be causing more harm than good, in which case it would be right to stop the factory’s operations, with force against the workers if necessary.
The beautiful thing about anarchism is it’s a space for hundreds of differing viewpoints (so long as they’re centered on non-hierarchical structures).
That said, I at no point mentioned force or violence in anarchist production ownership. Also where in my comment is there “keeping people out of a factory by force?” Having say over the day to day operations for the place you work is pretty typical of syndicalism, at least.
The beautiful thing of maths is that there are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1 but none of them are 2. Hierarchy of worker-owners over non-owners is unjust.
What else do you mean by “owning” a thing? In capitalism, it means you socially deserve to have people punish others on your behalf for using it in a way you don’t consent to. Workers owning the means of production is contrasted against capital owners (bourgeoisie, aristocracy, church, etc.) owning the means of production; it doesn’t re-examine ownership as a relation.
This is why state capitalism is such a natural outcome of Marxist thought: people expected ownership to continue, so all they had to convince people of is that the state represents the workers now. Hence also the prometheanism of state capitalist nations; since workers own the land, exploitation is still natural and convenient.
Yeah, and syndicalists are often hierarchical towards scabs and non-workers.
When I say “ownership,” which is a messy word yes, I mean right to consensus on operations. There is no real world without pushback, so that probably does involve defense against forces looking to reclaim it in a capitalist capacity.
That doesn’t negate the rights of “outsiders” to also co-influence or join in a democratic fashion in the context of wider community.
I think, like in another sub-thread with another commenter, there is a fuzzy line between theory and reality that can get confused in anarchist discussions and that may have also happened here for both of us.
In genuine interest of further understanding your viewpoint (in a non-antagonistic way), how do you envision just and sustainable production in this context? What does fairness look like? How does it operate?
These aren’t rhetorical or “gotchas,” just interested in widening my perspective if you so choose to share your time :)
The phrase is usually used to refer to the social class of workers as a whole (the people who work to live), as opposed to the capitalist class who simply own things for their livelyhood.