Becoming an Anarchist ?

After reading a comment made by Anok of Identity Check, I started looking into fair trade and gift economy.

“I find that for purposes of practicality - being that we live in a world that is not at the moment conducive to Anarchism of any real sort - the mixed economies that we are moving towards are best for the moment.

I myself, prefer fair trade barter and gift economies - keeping in mind that in my ideal Anarchist world the social structure would be very different than it is now.

The other aspect of Anarcho-capitalism that I take issue with is inequality. Class, or caste systems are inherent to capitalism, which is why most Anarchists oppose it. Now, when I talk about economic equality, I mean that each person’s contribution to society is deemed valuable, and equal in worth. Think about it - the factory worker’s job is as important as the waste management guy’s job, which is as important as a mother’s job to raise her child, which is as important as the seamstress, and teh farmer etc and so forth.

Without each part of society working together, society has a very hard time functioning. But in capitalist societies, those whose jobs are unsavory, pay less, or are simply deemed “fringe” or unworthy become the determining factor of that person’s social status in life.”, Anok

He was reacting to a post I made about anarcho-capitalism.

So what is fair trade and gift economy. Let’s ask wikipedia as it is usually a good way to start !

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach to empowering developing country producers and promoting sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a fair price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of a wide variety of goods.

So from what I understood the fair trade system is already here and is working fine to help people in less developed countries. To me this is really good since this is based on the following principles :

• Market Access for Marginalised Producers
• Sustainable and Equitable Trading Relationships
• Capacity Building & Empowerment
• Consumer Awareness Raising & Advocacy

It will therefore help small producers make a better living by including them in the economy and giving them access to the market. All this is based on the idea that a well informed consumer will stand up for fair trade and prefer to help small producers, and it actually work for a part of the population. The system is actually helping a lot of people in less developed countries, so it makes it good !

The only thing I start to wonder is what is the difference between the “fair market value” and the “market value”. In the end both are what the customer is willing to pay for a product. I must have my definitions wrong…

A gift economy is a social theory in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo. Typically, a gift economy occurs in a culture or subculture that emphasizes social or intangible rewards for solidarity and generosity: karma, honor, loyalty or other forms of gratitude.

So now this is the part that I don’t agree with. It sounds like something wonderfull, but I don’t see how that could work. I know that there is already a part of “gift” in our current system (blood donation, charity, open source…), but in my opinion it can’t be the base of an economy. It can work in a small community, but now that everything is global, how could we switch to a gift economy without going back to the middle age ?

This system is based on the fact that everyone is nice and everyone is equal. It would be great, but we really are not. Jobs are also not equals, some are harder, some require a special strenght, some require special knowledge… and if no one has an incentive to get these skills, in the end no one will do the hard jobs.

Also, if someone want to start a business, he will have to work hard. At some point he could get people to help him out, since it’s impossible to imagine an economy without some kind of employees or partners. Well the guy starting the process will have put a lot of work into his project… but in the end he will get just as much as the guy that just joined the project. So what would he start the project in the first place ?

It would be great if people were just all altruists, but they are not. Some are, and it’s a good thing, but we need to realize that not everyone is ready to work hard for the same thing as the guy next door.

Another point made in this comment was :

The other aspect of Anarcho-capitalism that I take issue with is inequality. Class, or caste systems are inherent to capitalism, which is why most Anarchists oppose it.

To me it is hard to remove all inequalities, and this is sure that capitalism leads to problems of this kind. But there is no way that a global economy could work without problems. We could forget all about the globalization of exchanges and go back in time… but is this really going to happen ? Is this really going to work ?

But the thing that still bothers me about capitalism is not the extra hierarchy : if a hierarchy is prooved to be justified, why abolish it? Of course I’m not saying that all hierarchy are justified, but sometimes it is needed. The thing that bothers me is the fact that an anarcho-capitalist system would fail in providing help to the people in need. I haven’t seen a credible alternative to the state in that case.

There is different views on capitalism depending on which anarchist will speak about it. The most common idea would be that an anarchist would be against capitalism and therefore tending more toward communism. But after reading some articles, I see that you might be able to conciliate both.

Therefore we can see that some anarchist advocate free market and laissez-faire. What are those ? Let’s see wikipedia :

A free market is a market in which property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers.

Laissez-faire : From the French dictum first used by the eighteenth century physiocrats as an injunction against government interference with trade, it became used as an economic ideology which advocates minimal state intervention on the economy.

In that case, it would basically be “as long as people want to exchange, let them be”. No government intervention, no tariff, no taxes. This would lead to free global exchange and extreme capitalism, I guess.

The problem with that is that it create a new form of exploitation (the boss versus the employees) and we go back to Marx’s theory of surplus value, or something like that. The main problem is centered around profit : if there is profit, it means that the wages are not high enough. If a company is able to gain more than it needs, why not giving this to the employees ? If all the profits is not splitted, then we get into some kind of exploitation of the workers, meaning that they don’t get paid fully for what they accumplished. It also means that the owner of the company keeps the product of the employees’ work for himself.

To me this can be kind of right, but in the end in a free market everyone is free to choose to work for a specific company or even free to create one ! So is there really exploitation when someone is willing to work ?

And to me, I always have this problem with “everyone is 100% equal”. It is just not possible. We can (we should) get the same rights, the same duties, but in the end two person will be different, even if only by their choices. Someone may want to get a nice quiet job and the other may want to create a huge company to take over the world.

So why not letting people do what they want? If I want to create a company and if people are willing to join me by working for me or partnering up, why not let all that be? I want to have total liberty over what I do of my time and what I own.

And of course, if I want to create a company, I will have to put a lot of time and work into that process. I will have to find investors, find partners… why can’t I be rewarded for that ? And if I’m not, why should I do it ? What I’m trying to say is that if people don’t see a point into creating a business, creating wealth, creating jobs, why would they do it ? Let’s be realistics here, humans are not that nice, a large majority will not kill themselves at work just to end up with the same thing as the next guy who stayed home watching TV. Some will. Most won’t.

So what to do with capitalism in all that ? Should one be able to live without doing nothing because people are working for him ? I’ll quote Bakunin :

“What is property, what is capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property owner they mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live without working…[and so] the power and right to live by exploiting the work of someone else…those…[who are] forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both.” The Political Philosophy of Bakunin

Hum. Good point… but it looks like something is missing. He’s not talking about self-made men and so on. So is that way of thinking really valid ?

Right now I am reading “Power and Market - Government and the Economy” by Murray N. Rothbard. This book try to explain how in a totally free market people will be able to live and consume safely. The author also talk about why taxes and tariffs are not legitimate and could be avoided without no consequences but positive ones.