RE: AUT: Neo-conservatism and workers

[Paul Bowman <Paul.Bowman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill wrote (in response to Ilan):
> >Who proposed "organisations of workers" that will decide
> >for others? Not the anarcho-communists.
>
> Oh, some of them I'm quite sure. No names, no pack drill, but
> *some* of
> them for sure are inclined to the view that local
> organisations should be
> "autonomous" and have the right to unilaterally decide the
> disposition of
> that part of the means of production which they directly
> operate. Without
> regard to the big picture of their particular industry,
> related industries,
> or the wider community that industries are there to serve.

There are certainly anarchists who fit your description, including those who
would call themselves "social" or "class struggle" anarchists. The point you
raise could be called "the famine question". In a social system where
despite the means of production being held in common, the actual products of
the labour of individuals or collectives are considered to be the private
property of the producers (to be exchanged for other products of equal
labour-time value or whatever...) this problem arises.

Consider that there is a famine in one region of the planet, whatever its
cause, at the same time there is a suplus of food that has been produced in
the other regions, a surplus big enough to cover the deficit in the famine
region. Under a system of private property in the products of labour, the
inhabitants of the afflicted region would have to "buy" the other regions
surplus they needed (and bear in mind that usually in a famine the normal
amount of labour has been invested in producing the lost crop - so this is
extra labour being extracted here). Of course the surplus holding regions
could decide to "gift" the necessary food but this would be a matter of the
normal property relations being overturned by moral pressure.

This "famine question" which provides one of the main motives behind the
communist decoupling of labour-time expended and right to a share of the
product - i.e. that "the collective property of the products of labour [is]
the necessary complement to the collectivist programme, the aid of all for
the satisfaction of the needs of each, being the only rule of production and
consumption which corresponds to the principle of solidarity". In other
words the communist attitude to the famine question is that any suggestion
that the food surpluses in the non-famine areas are not available to the
population of the famine region is anathema. I could go on but I'm you get
the point. Hence Ilan's specification of "anarchist-communist" in response
to this question.


     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---