anarcho communist planning

Anarcho-Communist Planning (2024) by Katja Einsfeld

via 15 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarcho-communist-planning]

notes/quotes:

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Abstract

In recent years, the discussion about economic concepts different from both capitalism and central planning has gotten more interest, new ideas emerged, and old ideas were rediscovered. This paper presents a modern version of the economic concept of anarcho-communist planning, originating from the late 19th century. The proposed idea is based on the needs of the people while respecting the planetary boundaries. It rejects ideas like markets, work remuneration, and money or other universal units of account. This paper first discusses the shortcomings of markets, central planning, and previous post-capitalist economic approaches like Parecon and Commons-based organizing from an anarcho-communist perspective. Then, it explains the concepts, required structures, and tools supporting the proposed anarcho-communist mode of economic planning in detail.

1. Criticism of Market Economies

As the economy has a huge impact on our lives, people should be involved in economic decisions, i.e. in the mode of production and distribution.

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Consequently, the anarcho-communist perspective also rejects the idea of work remuneration, which often comes in combination with market-based economic proposals, no matter if it is based on money or tokens representing work hours. Regardless of whether the wage is calculated depending on education, experience, hours, or effort – there can never be a concept that is fair to everyone.

3p.. rather.. any renumeration.. afom

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Another proposal, rejecting the idea of a universal unit of account is Commonism as described by Sutterlütti and Meretz 2023. In Commonism, the commons (i.e. work collectives) decide who they want to cooperate with. The danger of this approach is forming in-groups and forgetting about unpopular or marginalized groups. There is also no guarantee that important needs will be met (unless you manage to create a good network of cooperating commons). This concept might work for humans with good communication skills and no need for above-average care. Also, work councils deciding with whom to cooperate gives councils working on critical infrastructure a dangerously high accumulation of power. Commonism values the freedom of individual decision- making over solidarity. In contrast, the approach presented here focuses on the needs of everyone within the planetary boundaries by deciding about production and distribution in coordination committees. Products of work should not be considered the property of those who produce them but should be used by those who need them. This is a different mental model, which results in different behavior. Another problem of the original commonism approach was that they did not have a concept of how to tackle the climate crisis with planetary measures.

whalespeak

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Within the recent democratic planning discussion, the anarcho-communist idea of decentralized planning is rarely mentioned, even though it has a long history and modernized versions are still valid and discussed today. As the ideas presented in this paper are based on these concepts, the next section summarizes the economics-related concepts of classical anarcho-communism before presenting a more detailed modernized version.

Classical anarcho-communists argued in the late 19th century and early 20th century for decentralization, abolition of states and law enforcement, abolition of private property, for distribution based on needs, and against work remuneration. 

These early anarchists also already had ideas on how to collect the information required for distribution based on need. Kropotkin: „… but true and exact statistics must begin with the individual and mount up from the simple to the complex.“ And Goldsmith:

“…there must be some groups, committees who will concentrate the necessary statistical teachings. Their role must be strictly limited to that of purveyors of statistical data; the use which will then be made of this data does not concern them. They cannot emit any decree; … The advice of these statistical committees is no more coercive than the information given by an architect, the advice of a dietician, a teacher, etc.”

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This is, by the way. exactly in line with what would later be called cybernetic principles (Beer 1972): Collect information at the lowest level and aggregate it for overview purposes to reduce complexity. Overview roles are only providers of information, they don’t have any power over others.

Also, anarchism has always been about the plurality of ideas, a world of many worlds, the possibility of multiple (economic) models and ways of living co-existing next to each other (Nettlau 1909).

top.. esp last sent 1fp.. rovicers of info.. already afom.. so already ptopwtd.. oi.. 5fp thru top 9

I defined five requirements as a basis for any envisioned economic proposal or an emancipatory future society in general:

The first two are the values of freedom and solidarity. Freedom means the absence of coercion, oppression, and discrimination. Freedom is the ability to fulfill one’s needs, i.e., to develop and live a good life. Everyone should have the freedom to do what they want, as long as they don’t limit the freedom of others. Solidarity means not putting one’s own needs above those of others (future generations included) and reducing injustices. Freedom without solidarity results in privilege and injustice, it restricts the freedom of excluded groups or individuals. Solidarity without freedom is coercion. Therefore, freedom and solidarity must be in balance when it comes to the freedom of all.

The third requirement is to discuss how the care sector will be organized. If a utopian draft is only about the production of countable units (e.g. tons of steel) or if it is assumed that unpopular activities would somehow be done, then the care sector has not been considered. Is it implicitly assumed that women will continue to do this mostly invisible work on the side? Regardless of feminist motivations, any utopia must answer the question of distributing care work and unpopular activities without coercion if it is to pass the freedom and solidarity requirements.

The fourth requirement and acid test for utopias is the question of whether they also work in crises. Climate catastrophes and violent takeovers of power by authoritarian regimes can be played out as thought experiments. Crises have often shown that the capitalist system fails at the local level and must be rescued at the national or global level through massive interventions by states. Despite all this, capitalism keeps adapting to changing conditions and is seen by many as the best option – even in times of crisis. The utopia under examination must therefore face the question of whether it would be the better option even in times of crisis.

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The fifth and last requirement is for societies to be non-dogmatic. The utopia needs to allow for diversity and inclusion of minority groups. Diversity refers to lifestyles, preferences, worldviews, and origins. Dogmatic views are not always explicit. They can also consist of unstated and unquestioned assumptions. An example is the acceptance of the inequality between the global North and South without looking at the history of colonialism. “No dogma” does not mean, however, that any worldview is to be fully accepted. When it restricts the freedom of others and thus becomes dogma itself, a limit is needed.

5.3. Structural Requirements and the Proposed Mode of Organization

Any structures related to the economy should be as decentral, transparent, and dynamic as possible so that they don’t mutate into static power structures. As shown by Apolito 2020 the informational complexity should be encapsulated in decentralized structures like networks. On a local level, the nodes of the network can for example follow this pattern:

  1. Consumer councils organize around local neighborhoods or chosen families. They collect information on what is needed.
  2. Production collectives are organized around various production processes and services. They provide information on what could be produced or which services provided.
  3. Coordination committees consist of a few rotating delegates who facilitate and mediate between needs and production capabilities, coming up with multiple variations of possible plans.

There don’t have to be decisions and agreements about everything. Within a defined scope, people get a feeling of what can just be done without any deliberation (e.g. based on some core agreements). Transparency can help to nurture trust for this mode of operation (do-ocracy). If decisions are needed, those affected by the decisions should be able to be part of the decisions. They don’t have to decide everything as they can also trust others to make the right decisions but they could if they wanted.

There are no organizations like police, prisons, or military to enforce decisions. Agreements have a good chance of being acted upon as they were taken by those affected and not a remote authoritarian government. Thus, people are less alienated from the agreements. If some people don’t respect the agreements, it might not be a big deal. However, if others are disturbed by their behavior, there will be a conflict resolution process. If this does not help or people refuse to take part in the conflict resolution, their behavior can be scandalized. Communities might also decide to separate from individuals who repeatedly cause harm and refuse to participate in processes to transform their behavior (community accountability).

Conflict resolution will become a standard process everyone is used to: resource conflicts, distribution conflicts, people hurting others, people trying to gain influence in decisions disproportional to the degree to which they are affected, people not following agreements, workspace conflicts, and many more. After getting used to self-organized conflict resolution, the processes will become more common and easier to digest.

no dogma sent.. to last p.. because all the inbetweeen .. opi

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They should follow similar principles as the coordination council on the local level: They provide information, transparency, analysis, research, and suggestions, and facilitate decision-making and conflict resolution but they do not enforce decisions on others.

last 1/2 sent mid top p.. but they do not enforce decisoins.. if suggesting any fomrof dm.. enforcing decisions.. oi

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That way, everyone can subscribe to content and decisions they are interested in, e.g. their local community, their work collective, selected topics from their region, and a planetary topic close to their heart. 

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The information system should provide background information for upcoming decisions as collected by the coordination committee or other volunteers and should be transparently accessible to everyone who is affected

1st 1/2 1st sent 1fp.. oi.. bacground info is cd.. last 3 sents 2fp.. oi.. grok legit needs = works for all.. 3fp.. huge cd to the dance

Some examples: Needs about bread could be communicated in kilograms and never need to leave the community if bread is produced within the community. Also, individuals don’t have to estimate their bread consumption, the community can just use past consumption data. Individuals only need to communicate if they plan to consume drastically more or less. The same is true for basic care needs which could be communicated in hours. The needs for vegetables are also estimated from past usage and aggregated at the local level and then communicated to the regional network (as local as possible, except for the types of vegetables available in the community). Regional vegetable-producing collectives already know from past consumption and distribution data the rough amount of vegetables needed for the community. When distributed to the community the vegetables are put in a local distribution center where everyone can just take what they need, even if it is not exactly what they estimated as their needs. Vegetable types not available at the regional level are again aggregated and communicated to the larger geographical network. Rare specialized medical equipment needed by individuals can be communicated in anonymized form by the local community directly to the production collective producing such equipment (similar to direct orders in today’s economy).

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Regarding planetary boundaries and necessary actions to counteract climate change, specialized councils can suggest limits for emissions or other actions to take. There might be planetary agreements to follow such suggestions. The details on how to implement the suggestions should be decided on as locally as possible, taking into account the specific regional situation and planetary injustices between regions still resulting from the times of colonial and capitalist exploitation, which should be counteracted as well. E.g. there could be a planetary agreement to limit methane emissions to a specified amount. Regional councils would communicate their aggregated methane emission needs so that they can produce to fulfill the needs of the people in that area. Based on that data, the council can facilitate the decision on how to distribute methane emission quotas to the regions.

While there is no compulsion to work, neither via authorities nor via work remuneration, there might be transparent communication about worker shortages in some work collectives in the federated information system. If needed, the communities might decide on measures to prevent worker shortages like a rotation for unpopular tasks or changes to the way the task is done to make it more enjoyable.

Which key indicators to pick is up to the affected people, who also decide how detailed the collected data needs to be depending on the context and their preferences. They might even decide not to collect data at all. Key indicators are not only units of products or services, units of resources used, or units of climate-relevant emissions, they can also indicate general non-quantifiable environmental impact from low to high, work conditions during production, or how critical a product or service is to cover the needs of (some) people.

Panarchy is a political philosophy that emphasizes an individual’s right to choose their political and economic system without changing their physical location.

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Panarchy solves the “too big to fail”-problem by running multiple systems in parallel in the same region. Panarchy is also popular in market-liberal or so-called anarcho-capitalist circles as it takes the idea of competition without any restrictions to the level of political systems. Panarchy could lead to increased ableism and uneven distribution of care work, if those currently requiring less care would switch to competitive systems and switch back to cooperative systems once they are older and require more care. Injustices like this should be prevented.

A system based on panarchy is a meta-system that should define how the various systems interact with each other and how core values like freedom and solidarity can be maintained across all systems. This includes questions regarding the distribution of resources between the systems. While ideas of anarchism are often confronted with the question of how they will handle so-called “bad actors”, meta-systems of panarchy will have to be resilient to “bad systems”. From the VSM point of view, this is the same problem at another level. Decentralized systems tend to be more resilient to “bad actors” than centralized ones.

A planetary panarchist meta-system might need a minimal agreement for coexisting societies so that neither the planet nor certain societies are exploited or destroyed. The following is a suggestion for such a minimal planetary agreement:

  1. The planet must remain permanently habitable for the living beings of all continents.
  2. Every person is free to decide how and where they want to live, as long as this does not restrict the freedom of others.
  3. The basic needs of every person must be fulfilled.
  4. All structures of concern are transparent.
  5. There are no (national) borders and no warlike activities.
  6. Planetary and regional justice (measured in satisfaction, with the minimum being raised) is aspired.

It is likely, that capitalism can’t coexist under these conditions.

6. Conclusion

The anarcho-communist approach of decentralized economic planning presented in this paper enables everyone to participate in decisions they are affected by, including all aspects of the economy from consumption preferences and the distribution of scarce resources, over production processes, to organizational aspects and long-term resource distribution and development. These extensive participation possibilities exceed what is usually considered democratic participation. It is facilitated by networked forms of organization and supporting federated cybernetic information tools. This form of decentralization absorbs complexity at the local level while focusing on the needs of the people and fighting injustices, discrimination, and structures of domination.

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