“Workers own the means of production” is, in fact, anarchist but I can understand freshly-minted anarchists get turned off the idea at first by tankies lol
Tankies think that the state should own the means of production. Sure, they’ll then claim that the workers own the state, but in reality it’s just owned by the political elite.
Bingo. If your hands aren’t operating the equipment on the daily, you shouldn’t get to (co)own it. Statism bleeding into work life is effectively diet capitalism.
Theory and reality are different things, absolutely - politics is labor. Whether that’s used for good or evil is separate. Politics also =/= statism, and nothing will ever be neatly cut and dry in the real world to fully divorce ourselves from these quandaries.
Why not? Politics happens either way. There are going to be people who are more influential than others. name any famous anarchist, my favorite was Malatesta, and they were 100% absolutely engaged in political work.
Is it just that political work is okay until after the workers seize the means? IMO denying the necessity of political work as a means of suppressing the possibility of political domination of a minority, which is a real concern, drifts into authoritarianism almost instantly. Its just denying reality. Denying that political work is work is a political opinion. Enforcing it would be political work!
This is not a gotcha question, genuinely want to hear your opinion. I don’t think pointing out a contradiction is, on its own, a total invalidation of any given viewpoint. Contradictions are everywhere, people are contradictory.
Anarchy is more about dissolving ownership. Why would it be right to keep people out of a factory by force just because you work there?
If you have reason to believe they will cause direct or indirect harm, sure, but ownership is no indication of that. In fact production may be causing more harm than good, in which case it would be right to stop the factory’s operations, with force against the workers if necessary.
The beautiful thing about anarchism is it’s a space for hundreds of differing viewpoints (so long as they’re centered on non-hierarchical structures).
That said, I at no point mentioned force or violence in anarchist production ownership. Also where in my comment is there “keeping people out of a factory by force?” Having say over the day to day operations for the place you work is pretty typical of syndicalism, at least.
The phrase is usually used to refer to the social class of workers as a whole (the people who work to live), as opposed to the capitalist class who simply own things for their livelyhood.
“Workers own the means of production” is, in fact, anarchist but I can understand freshly-minted anarchists get turned off the idea at first by tankies lol
Tankies think that the state should own the means of production. Sure, they’ll then claim that the workers own the state, but in reality it’s just owned by the political elite.
Bingo. If your hands aren’t operating the equipment on the daily, you shouldn’t get to (co)own it. Statism bleeding into work life is effectively diet capitalism.
Honest question: is political work a valid form of labor?
Theory and reality are different things, absolutely - politics is labor. Whether that’s used for good or evil is separate. Politics also =/= statism, and nothing will ever be neatly cut and dry in the real world to fully divorce ourselves from these quandaries.
Honest personal opinion: Absolutely not.
Why not? Politics happens either way. There are going to be people who are more influential than others. name any famous anarchist, my favorite was Malatesta, and they were 100% absolutely engaged in political work.
Is it just that political work is okay until after the workers seize the means? IMO denying the necessity of political work as a means of suppressing the possibility of political domination of a minority, which is a real concern, drifts into authoritarianism almost instantly. Its just denying reality. Denying that political work is work is a political opinion. Enforcing it would be political work!
This is not a gotcha question, genuinely want to hear your opinion. I don’t think pointing out a contradiction is, on its own, a total invalidation of any given viewpoint. Contradictions are everywhere, people are contradictory.
Also that’s not my downvote, I don’t do that shi
Anarchy is more about dissolving ownership. Why would it be right to keep people out of a factory by force just because you work there?
If you have reason to believe they will cause direct or indirect harm, sure, but ownership is no indication of that. In fact production may be causing more harm than good, in which case it would be right to stop the factory’s operations, with force against the workers if necessary.
The beautiful thing about anarchism is it’s a space for hundreds of differing viewpoints (so long as they’re centered on non-hierarchical structures).
That said, I at no point mentioned force or violence in anarchist production ownership. Also where in my comment is there “keeping people out of a factory by force?” Having say over the day to day operations for the place you work is pretty typical of syndicalism, at least.
The phrase is usually used to refer to the social class of workers as a whole (the people who work to live), as opposed to the capitalist class who simply own things for their livelyhood.