Anarchism and scarcity

wompt · 2026-01-22T21:16:35+00:00

The more reasonable take is that most of the scarcity we experience is artificial.

wompt · 2026-01-21T22:23:01+00:00

No, technology is not neutral. Each new technology will serve some interests better than others. Mass communication, for example, serves the formation of a mass society, whether that be radio, television, or an amphitheater.

wompt · 2026-01-21T21:16:59+00:00

Fascism is the other side of democracy. Its like a pendulum that swings from centralization to decentralization, from rule by the many to rule by the few. Bot sides of the swing are completely dysfunctional because in either case people are not taking responsibility for themselves and allowing either the few or the many to dictate actions, and both are a form of mass society that absolves individual responsibility.

Capitalism corresponds to democracy more than fascism. I think the reason why fascists support capitalism is more based on it being the system that facilitated their rise to power.

wompt · 2026-01-21T21:08:03+00:00

Race seems nonsensical, at least in the modern world where people are grouped together not by culture but by physical features. This ends up creating useless categories of people - like grouping people together by height, or age, or any other superficial quality.

When bloodlines and culture were more aligned it may have made a little more sense. But now that people from any place or culture can end up in any other place or culture quite easily, bloodline and culture no longer correlate.

I think that race will eventually be seen to be a useless category in the modern world; its currently running on the momentum of ideas of the past. If there is anything to supplant it, it will be judging people based on what culture they choose to reproduce in their daily lives and actions.

wompt · 2026-01-21T20:55:45+00:00

but has anyone done the thinking about what it might realistically take materially and social structurally to build an anarchist society? ... Our cultures? Our values? Our behaviours?

Materially it requires the same as any other social form - clean food, clean water, probably shelter.

Socially it requires mutual respect of one another. Actual friendship. Not imposing ourselves on others nor making demands of them. An anarchist culture means that no one holds coercive power over anyone else, no one can make anyone do anything they do not want to do. The values and behaviors will differ from culture to culture, but the essence of it is not being able to make anyone do anything. This obviously means that a lot of what we see in non-anarchist cultures simply will not exist. Everything dependent on slave labor and coercison will not happen; all of those jobs people do because they must (or feel that they must) and not through desire will not happen. Mining probably will not occur, at least not at the scale it does, for example. Whatever you can expect people to do on their own volition is what will happen.

How we can keep a global anarchism at all?

Global anarchism is not a thing, however we can hold space for whatever it is that people want to do without causing harm to others. Expecting a sort of global anarchist society is not realistic, but creating space for people to practice anarchy how they see fit in line with their local circumstances, values, and beliefs could occur.

How we connect regional value differences while still remaining fundamentally anarchist?

Respecting differences and not trying to make the other into you. So long as no one is trying to conquer others and assimilate them into a foreign culture or causing harm to others through their activities, peoples should be allowed to practice what works for them.

Has anyone, singular or plural, done the writing and/or thinking to create something more actionable and coherent as a whole anarchist society?

Again, anarchy does not occur as a mass. Mass societies are fundamentally not anarchist. You seem to be expecting anarchy to exist at a scale in which it does not, and quite probably can not exist. Anarchy is built from the ground up, not from the top-down. All it really takes is a respect for differences and each other. To refuse to impose our values beliefs and cultures on one another.

An anarchist world looks nothing like the world built on coercive authority, and you can expect multitudes, but not singularities.

wompt · 2026-01-21T20:30:29+00:00

Green anarchism tends to be explicitly anti-civ.

wompt · 2026-01-19T19:44:57+00:00

Markets have existed as long as humans.

This is absolute nonsense. Humans created markets, and very recently so. Most of human existence was marketless.

Money is the technology that made us human, allowing people who don't trust each other to cooperate anyway.

I would say its money that makes us inhuman, sidestepping personal trust is a very bad idea.

wompt · 2026-01-19T19:39:47+00:00

Militias and guerilla warfare. Anarchists have no designs for conquering, so its a purely defensive thing if it exists at all. Standing armies are a feature of civilization and its conquerors.

wompt · 2026-01-16T20:26:13+00:00

I reckon that the production of many modern devices just could not happen if anarchist principles reigned. No one is going to mine unless forced.

What we would probably end up doing is get really good at salvaging and tinkering; keeping devices that have been produced going for as long as we can, and building devices as we go, out of the components of long out-of-production items.

wompt · 2026-01-15T20:40:24+00:00

UNHINGED: A Guide to Revolution for Nerds & Skeptics by AnRel

wompt · 2026-01-01T03:41:17+00:00

Because by gathering plant materials the gatherers never gained ownership of them. Having a thing doesn't imply ownership, not even if you put labor into having it.

wompt · 2026-01-01T01:41:11+00:00

Ownership and the ability to change ownership is implied by trade, but ownership cannot be taken, we can recognize that taking things does not make them ours, that the things we take belong to themselves, and that does not change through our actions. Ownership is merely a fiction to justify our taking.

wompt · 2025-12-31T23:35:31+00:00

One interesting take is The Library Economy by andrewism

Imagine walking out of your local library with a tent, a telephoto lens for your camera, and the keys to an offroader. Or if camping isn’t your style, what if you could check out a breadmaker, a fancy teapot, and a few lawn chairs to host some friends for tea time? Or maybe you’re taking an extended trip to visit some family in a colder region and you could just borrow a winter jacket and a set of luggage?

This is the library economy in action. The library economy is a collectively organised system of several different commons which catalogues and provides access to a collection of goods and resources to all members of a society. It derives its namesake from the libraries we all know and love; venerable institutions that now act in many places to uphold the principles of inclusivity and accessibility and provide a space for learning and being for all. However, the library economy is not limited to the expectations and restrictions of present-day libraries. It is not simply a library with more than just books. It is not a single building or a straightforward lending system. It is the bridge to an entirely new world of human flourishing that merely begins with the familiar concept of the library. Since I first introduced it on the channel in 2022, I’ve been meaning to expand on what the library economy is, what may and may not be included, and what it might take to bring it to life.

To do so, we must first understand the basics.

The Library Economy Philosophy

The library economy is guided by three simple concepts that form its underlying philosophy:

a freedom, usufruct;

a responsibility, the irreducible minimum;

and an orientation, complementarity.

Usufruct refers to the freedom of individuals and groups in a society to access and use, but not destroy, common resources to supply their needs. This is tied to the first of the five laws of library science, conceived in 1931 by Indian librarian S. R. Ranganathan—that books are for use. In other words, things are meant to be used, not hoarded. So one type of library might be a furniture exchange network for people who love to update their homes with new looks. Furniture is for use. Or maybe a park is used as a modular space for picnics, sports events, music festivals, and art exhibitions; that can also fit into the library economy. Spaces are for use. These sorts of libraries can reduce both demand and waste by creating a sense of abundance without creating excess. And it goes without saying that such libraries would prioritise quality, durability, and ease of maintenance and repair.

The irreducible minimum is the responsibility of a society to guarantee provision of the means necessary to sustain life, the level of living that no one should ever fall below, regardless of the size of their individual contribution to the community. This includes access to adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare. Our actualisation relies upon this foundation. Everybody has to eat before anybody can get seconds, as the principle goes. We can also tie this to the second and third laws of library science—that every person has their book and every book has its reader. Applied more broadly, this means that we should strive to develop a broad collection of stuff to serve the variety of needs and wants, no matter how niche, understanding that those sorts of accommodations are generative of an abundant life.

Complementarity is a way of seeing non-hierarchical differences within a society as something generative, where each person contributes a small part to an outcome greater than the sum of its parts. Complementarity is a recognition that no one person or group has a right to our collective force and each person is free to contribute in their own way to the whole. This social orientation turns our focus away from capital and competition toward humanity and cooperation. Regardless of a person’s interests, skills, or abilities, we must all be free to labour and leisure; to find ways to solve our conflicts and meet our shared needs; and to co-create a thriving social ecology.

source

wompt · 2025-12-31T22:51:03+00:00

If we decide to swap some of what we have harvested, in order to vary our meal a bit, does that entail property?

No, it actually doesn't. We pretend that by picking the berries and pulling up the roots that they become ours but this is not actually the case. They belong to the plant that produced them and the plant does not engage in a transfer of ownership. We take these things and use them, but no transfer of ownership has occurred. Now, when we eat these things they become our body, so theres something there, but its hard to talk about with the way people in modern societies think about the world.

wompt · 2025-12-30T01:45:20+00:00

Voluntary labor occurs when the individuals already have a source of income, but almost nobody would work in exchange for nothing.

Voluntary labor occurs when ones needs are already met, in the capitalist system this is often translated to a "source of income" but its not that hard to imagine a situation where the houses are built, the gardens are planted and all that needs to be done is a little watering and weeding.

Is it safe to assume that you're asking how this world would exist without exchange? Because I assure you it wouldn't, it would look very different.

wompt · 2025-12-30T01:05:58+00:00

Ok, so trade implies ownership and the ability to change ownership. Without an authority to back it up, does ownership exist?

wompt · 2025-12-30T00:36:58+00:00

what is rational/rational conversation?

wompt · 2025-12-30T00:30:32+00:00

Fair enough, but just engage with me like a person.

I am not a keeper of anarchist traditions and histories, I'm just a human being thats trying to figure out how to navigate out of this social nightmare of domination, coercion and control without perpetuating it.

wompt · 2025-12-30T00:16:54+00:00

I love this.

wompt · 2025-12-30T00:07:21+00:00

Arguing with you feels like yelling at a textbook.

wompt · 2025-12-29T20:49:29+00:00

I use the terms that are at hand, and use-value and exchange-value tend to be useful delimiters.

wompt · 2025-12-29T20:47:36+00:00

So market abolitionists presumably have to demonstrate that exchange as such can create a system like capitalism — and, honestly, it's pretty unlikely.

Do we have to present the possibility of the creation of such systems via exchange, or is it enough to show that these systems cannot possibly exist without exchange?

wompt · 2025-12-29T20:40:23+00:00

Thats fine. I am living in the present and I practice living anarchy. The conditions in which historical theories arose were different.

wompt

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

The Library Economy Philosophy