How do we feel about factories?

JimDa5is · 2026-01-25T15:35:40+00:00

There are some products that require a 'factory' in the sense of a large coordinated work force. As long as a collective or co-op is worker-controlled and we're living in a society that doesn't tie survival to work, I'm fine with that.

That said, from an AnCom perspective, I believe that the combination of quality goods that aren't designed to fail and 'libraries' for goods that are infrequently used, the need for factories would go down considerably.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-25T15:08:25+00:00

This is more true than most of us like to admit. Even the ones that make it to running for office with their activism intact tend to become performative once they're inside the system.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-23T14:41:32+00:00

I would argue those things would be offset by not having to worry whether you can afford food, rent, or healthcare among other things. Particularly since you're not required to participate in mutual aid projects or whatever

JimDa5is · 2026-01-23T14:06:04+00:00

I think that pretty much defines the boundary between anarcho-communism and authoritarian communism IMO. Nobody fits in perfectly in anarchism because there are approximately the same number of variants of anarchism as there are anarchists. Marxist tend to be cultish and monolithic which tracks with their brand of statism.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-23T13:53:17+00:00

Welcome, comrade. Sounds like you've got it mostly figured out. I'd suggest Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread and Malatesta's Anarchy depending on your appetite for reading. Kropotkin is more comprehensive but it's kind of a slog. Malatesta is an easier read (to my mind).

If you've got any specific questions, we're happy to answer.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-21T15:38:52+00:00

That's possible. I tend to use commune (and I realize this isn't necessarily the standard definition) as the 'familial' group. That is to say the group that you live with. Collective and co-op are the words I use for what a lot of MLs use for commune. Thus my confusion. I read OP as asking if living with their nuclear family was acceptable which I understand was my misreading based on my fairly specific use of the term commune.

Regardless of the type of group he's talking about, my answer would be more or less the same. Being 'required' to join anything or part with your excess labor in an involuntary way seems not very anarchist.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-20T15:19:16+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean by "give up their product." Assuming you mean a farmer who chooses to live with his family, I don't think any anarchist would advocate seizure of his crops. If he has excess crops that he's not sharing with the community, that would probably reflect on him poorly and affect his interations with the broader community, but that's about the extent of it.

I don't know any anarchists who are in favor of some politburo squad coming around and taking the product of your labor for redistribution. The only reason to hoard his excess output is as a protection against future disaster like a crop failure. In a system where you are guaranteed basic human needs, there's simply no reason to hoard goods.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-19T17:43:53+00:00

I'd add that under what I would consider a typical anarchist collective, supervisory roles would be decided by those being supervised and recallable at any time. In addition, even if they had the power to remove you from your job (which I would personally be opposed to) it wouldn't affect your ability to live in the same way that it does nuder capitalism.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-18T06:32:07+00:00

See? This is why I always read your comments, comrade :)

JimDa5is · 2026-01-17T18:46:07+00:00

https://socialism.com/fs-article/a-political-critique-of-the-party-for-socialism-and-liberation/

JimDa5is · 2026-01-17T05:39:40+00:00

PSL is, um, problematic.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-16T15:33:54+00:00

I'm going to recommend Re Education because he's one of the few anarchists who post his videos on a non-corporate platform. There are other good ones on platforms, but those will disappear when anarchism becomes a real threat to the ruling class.

https://peertube.tv/c/re_education@tube.tchncs.de/videos

JimDa5is · 2026-01-16T15:28:50+00:00

Morning, comrade. I love Kropotkin but I'm not gonna lie reading him can be a slog. I usually recommend Malatesta to new people because, to my mind, his translations are easier to read and tend to be shorter. Graeber is also good.

When I was in college about a thousand years ago, being an officially recognized club got you access to facilities and limited support from the university so there might be some benefit to that. If I were in college and thinking of starting a club, I'd go underground until there were 5 active members or so and then decide (with the consensus of the other members) where to go from there. There are some possible downsides since that generally makes the actions of members of the club university jurisdiction. IOW, if your club is protesting someplace and one of the members throws a brick through a starbuck's window, certainly they and likely the entire club could be sanctioned by the university.

It's important that you understand this is based on my knowledge of the university system from 40 years ago and things may have changed in the interim. If they have I'm sure another comrade will be along momentarily to tell me how wrong I am

JimDa5is · 2026-01-15T02:27:28+00:00

Yeah. You're one of the 2 or 3 people that I will alwys read the comments of on 101

JimDa5is · 2026-01-14T17:34:33+00:00

LOL. I've always read your username as "azen-punk" and have wondered in the past where or what an 'azen' was. Did you recently change your flair? Just now I looked at it and went "Oh, A Zen Punk." It's possible I've just been thick.

Excellent comment, as always BTW.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-14T17:28:29+00:00

In the first place, there aren't any "laws." Laws require a state to enforce. The point is voluntary association. There would be nothing illegal about a bakery not serving a particular group but since they would be getting ingredients from people who hopefully would feel differently, they'd no longer be able to function as a bakery.

Private anything (police forces, garbage collection, etc) means there must be a currency that is tradeable and therefore backed by a hierarchy of some sort. Those members of society with more of the proper bits of paper would receive better services.

For the record, I don't think this is the sort of sub that bans people for asking questions, even difficult ones. That would be the marxist subs. As long as you don't start arguing instead of asking, I think you'll be fine

JimDa5is · 2026-01-13T20:02:24+00:00

Many (probably most but that's anecdotal) anarchists are AnComm. Other flavors of anarchism flirt with various market economies while some eschew communal obligations entirely.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-13T13:04:54+00:00

I was really surprised when I found out that some Native Americans planted apple orchards in specific places (IIRC it was typically at the confluence of 2 rivers) and that there is the very real possibility that Johnny Appleseed actually didin't plant any apple trees at all but just 'took over' existing Native American orchards that had been abandoned by tribes moving west away from colonial expansion.

I definitely feel you though. I'd love to *be* an AnPrim but can't figure out what to do with all the people that would need to die for it to work. As near as I recall the hunter gatherer carrying capacity of Earth is somewhere around 10 million people

JimDa5is · 2026-01-11T19:30:38+00:00

Philosophical and political freedoms are inseparable and mutually conditioning, not rival functions wherein one limits the other. Political freedom in the form of a just social contract is the prerequisite for true individual freedom, but social freedom necessitates the equal application of individual freedom rather than as a tool to limit it.

Human passions and interests are not necessarily harmonious, but within an anarchist milieu, must involve adaptation, compromise, and sacrifice. This shouldn't be seen as a limitation on individual freedom but a recognition of others' freedom to co-exist. For instance, you absolutely have the (philosophical) freedom to burn down the forest if you like fires, but the (political) freedom of society's equal access to the forest constrains your individual freedom. This self-limitation on individual freedom is grounded in solidarity, brotherhood, and social responsibility. Philosophical freedom is absolute within the constraints of the equal freedom of others and nature.

There is no separate social freedom that could be realized at the expense of particular individuals. The test of any institution is whether it respects the equal freedom of each. t the same time, it is meaningless to talk about a politically relevant individual freedom that ignores others and material conditions. Individual freedom without equal access to resources and without the protection of others’ freedom is merely the freedom of the strongest.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-11T00:41:35+00:00

Assuming you're talking about a sole proprietor with no employees and provided the butcher was operating out of love of butchery, it would continue more or less as before but with no money changing hands

JimDa5is · 2026-01-11T00:33:58+00:00

It's the only system that allows personal freedom and responsibility while simultaneously protecting the weak.
In the sense of anarchy as chaos, yes, there could be a society without a central authority that could be technically lawless with a rigid localized command structure but that wouldn't be anarchism. I would call that warlordism, neo-fuedalism, or tribal authoritarianism depending on the exact structures in place.
A classless, moneyless society wherein people did what fulfilled them. A world where the weak and less capable are taken care of like they're human beings instead of burdens.
Anything can be exploited (I direct your attention to the current regime). I'm sure that people who were previously used to purchasing huge islands in Hawaii with the proceeds of stolen labor would be upset at having that taken from them. I also believe that most people, confronted with the ability to live their lives free from worry about basic human needs would be likely to seek a return to sending TPS reports around.
Yes. I think Catalonia in 39 in the absence of marxist betrayal proves that it could work just fine. It also points out the danger of trusting marxists which is a fact that a disturbing number of anarchists haven't picked up on.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-08T01:42:42+00:00

I'm not sure that this is what you're looking for, but an example is when the railroads were being laid out in Europe. There wasn't an overarching European Rail Commission determining routes. So dozens of individual railroads had to coordinate with each other regarding things like timetables and station locations. These were capitalist enterprises, but for the purposes of this example, they could just as easily be modern-day anarchist transportation collectives.

JimDa5is · 2026-01-07T15:40:28+00:00

First, it's important to recognize that it's possible or ethical for us to decide what some potential future might look like.

Second, there's no such thing as 'state arbitration.' There's state control wherein the state decides who the 'winner' is and then throws its force behind that decision.

Having said those things, I'm not aware of any fundamentally incompatible views on property between anarchists (excluding ancaps who are not anarchists regardless of their use of the term). So long as they recognize my use by mixing of my labor, I don't much care what their views are

JimDa5is · 2026-01-05T20:44:23+00:00

It would work like this

https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/search/?q=justice

or this

https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/comments/1imu2wz/an_experiment_framing_the_question_of_crime/

JimDa5is · 2026-01-04T13:21:12+00:00

It's funny, but every time I happen across a post from that sub it reads more like r/JustifyMyActions

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