          I.3 What could the economic structure of anarchy look like?

   Here we will examine possible frameworks of a libertarian socialist
   economy. We stress that it is frameworks rather than framework because
   it is likely that any anarchist society will see a diverse number of
   economic systems co-existing in different areas, depending on what
   people in those areas want. "In each locality," argued Diego Abad de
   Santillan, "the degree of communism, collectivism or mutualism will
   depend on the conditions prevailing. Why dictate rules? We who make
   freedom our banner, cannot deny it in economy. Therefore there must be
   free experimentation, free show of initiative and suggestions, as well
   as the freedom of organisation." As such, anarchism "can be realised in
   a multiformity of economic arrangements, individual and collective.
   Proudhon advocated mutualism; Bakunin, collectivism; Kropotkin,
   communism. Malatesta has conceived the possibility of mixed agreements,
   especially during the first period." [After the Revolution, p. 97 and
   p. 96]

   Here, we will highlight and discuss the four major schools of anarchist
   economic thought: Individualist anarchism, mutualism, collectivism and
   communism. It is up to the reader to evaluate which school best
   maximises individual liberty and the good life (as individualist
   anarchist Joseph LaBadie wisely said, "Anarchism will not dictate to
   them any explicit rules as to what they must do, but that it opens to
   them the opportunities of putting into practice their own ideas of
   enhancing their own happiness." [The Individualist Anarchists, pp.
   260-1]). "Nothing is more contrary to the real spirit of Anarchy than
   uniformity and intolerance," argued Kropotkin. "Freedom of development
   implies difference of development, hence difference of ideas and
   actions." Experience, then, is "the best teacher, and the necessary
   experience can only be gained by entire freedom of action." [quoted by
   Ruth Kinna, "Fields of Vision: Kropotkin and Revolutionary Change", pp.
   67-86, SubStance, Vol. 36, No. 2, p. 81] There may, of course, be other
   economic practices but these may not be libertarian. In Malatesta's
   words:

     "Admitted the basic principle of anarchism -- which is that no-one
     should wish or have the opportunity to reduce others to a state of
     subjection and oblige them to work for him -- it is clear that all,
     and only, those ways of life which respect freedom, and recognise
     that each individual has an equal right to the means of production
     and to the full enjoyment of the product of his own labour, have
     anything in common with anarchism." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and
     Ideas, p. 33]

   In addition, it should be kept in mind that in practice it is
   impossible to separate the economic realm from the social and political
   realms, as there are numerous interconnections between them: anarchist
   thinkers like Bakunin argued that the "political" institutions of a
   free society would be based upon workplace associations while Kropotkin
   placed the commune at the heart of his vision of a communist-anarchist
   economy and society. Thus the division between social and economic
   forms is not clear cut in anarchist theory -- as it should be as
   society is not, and cannot be, considered as separate from or inferior
   to the economy. An anarchist society will try to integrate the social
   and economic, embedding the latter in the former in order to stop any
   harmful externalities associated economic activity being passed onto
   society. As Karl Polanyi argued, capitalism "means no less than the
   running of society as an adjunct to the market. Instead of the economy
   being being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded
   in the economic system." [The Great Transformation, p. 57] Given the
   negative effects of such an arrangement, little wonder that anarchism
   seeks to reverse it.

   Also, by discussing the economy first we are not implying that dealing
   with economic domination or exploitation is more important than dealing
   with other aspects of the total system of domination, e.g. social
   hierarchies, patriarchal values, racism, etc. We follow this order of
   exposition because of the need to present one thing at a time, but it
   would have been equally easy to start with the social and political
   structure of anarchy. However, Rudolf Rocker is correct to argue that
   an economic transformation in the economy is an essential aspect of a
   social revolution:

     "[A] social development in this direction [i.e. a stateless society]
     was not possible without a fundamental revolution in existing
     economic arrangements; for tyranny and exploitation grow on the same
     tree and are inseparably bound together. The freedom of the
     individual is secure only when it rests on the economic and social
     well-being of all . . . The personality of the individual stands the
     higher, the more deeply it is rooted in the community, from which
     arise the richest sources of its moral strength. Only in freedom
     does there arise in man the consciousness of responsibility for his
     acts and regard for the rights of others; only in freedom can there
     unfold in its full strength that most precious of social instinct:
     man's sympathy for the joys and sorrows of his fellow men and the
     resultant impulse toward mutual aid and in which are rooted all
     social ethics, all ideas of social justice." [Nationalism and
     Culture, pp. 147-8]

   The aim of any anarchist society would be to maximise freedom and so
   creative work:

     "If it is correct, as I believe it is, that a fundamental element of
     human nature is the need for creative work or creative inquiry, for
     free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive
     institutions, then of course it will follow that a decent society
     should maximise the possibilities for this fundamental human
     characteristic to be realised. Now, a federated, decentralised
     system of free associations incorporating economic as well as social
     institutions would be what I refer to as anarcho-syndicalism. And it
     seems to me that it is the appropriate form of social organisation
     for an advanced technological society, in which human beings do not
     have to be forced into the position of tools, of cogs in a machine."
     [Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p.
     31]

   So, as one might expect, since the essence of anarchism is opposition
   to hierarchical authority, anarchists totally oppose the way the
   current economy is organised. This is because authority in the economic
   sphere is embodied in centralised, hierarchical workplaces that give an
   elite class (capitalists) dictatorial control over privately owned
   means of production, turning the majority of the population into order
   takers (i.e. wage slaves). In contrast, the libertarian-socialist
   economy will be based on decentralised, egalitarian workplaces in which
   workers democratically self-manage their productive activity in
   socially owned means of production.

   The key principles of libertarian socialism are decentralisation,
   self-management, socialisation, voluntary association, and free
   federation. These principles determine the form and function of both
   the economic and political systems. In this section we will consider
   just the economic system. Bakunin gives an excellent overview of such
   an economy when he wrote that in a free society the "land belongs to
   only those who cultivate it with their own hands; to the agricultural
   communes. The capital and all the tools of production belong to the
   workers; to the workers' associations." These associations are often
   called "co-operatives" and "syndicates" (see [1]section I.3.1). This
   feeds into an essential economic concept for libertarian socialists is
   "workers' self-management" This refers to those who do the work
   managing it, where the land and workplaces are "owned and operated by
   the workers themselves: by their freely organised federations of
   industrial and agricultural workers" (see [2]section I.3.2). For most
   anarchists, "socialisation" is the necessary foundation for a free
   society, as only this ensures universal self-management by allowing
   free access to the means of production (see [3]section I.3.3). Thus an
   anarchist economy would be based on "the land, tools of production and
   all other capital" being "converted into collective property of the
   whole of society and utilised only by the workers, i.e., by their
   agricultural and industrial associations." [Bakunin on Anarchy, p. 247,
   p. 400 and p. 427] As Berkman summarised:

     "The revolution abolishes private ownership of the means of
     production, distribution, and with it goes capitalistic business.
     Personal possession remains only in the things you use. Thus, your
     watch is your own, but the watch factory belongs to the people.
     Land, machinery, and all other public utilities will be collective
     property, neither to be bought nor sold. Actual use will be
     considered the only title [in communist anarchism] -- not to
     ownership but to possession. The organisation of the coal miners,
     for example, will be in charge of the coal mines, not as owners but
     as the operating agency. Similarly will the railroad brotherhoods
     run the railroads, and so on. Collective possession, co-operatively
     managed in the interests of the community, will take the place of
     personal ownership privately conducted for profit." [What is
     Anarchism?, p. 217]

   So the solution proposed by social anarchists is society-wide ownership
   of the means of production and distribution, with each workplace run
   co-operatively by its members. However, no workplace exists in
   isolation and would seek to associate with others to ensure it gets the
   raw materials it needs for production and to see what it produces goes
   to those who need it. These links would be based on the anarchist
   principles of free agreement and voluntary federation (see [4]section
   I.3.4). For social anarchists, this would be supplemented by confederal
   bodies or co-ordinating councils at two levels: first, between all
   firms in a particular industry; and second, between all industries
   (including agriculture) throughout the society ([5]section I.3.5). Such
   federations may, depending on the type of anarchism in question, also
   include people's financial institutions.

   While, for some anarcho-syndicalists, this structure is seen as enough,
   most communist-anarchists consider that the economic federation should
   be held accountable to society as a whole (i.e. the economy must be
   communalised). This is because not everyone in society is a worker
   (e.g. the young, the old and infirm) nor will everyone belong to a
   syndicate (e.g. the self-employed), but as they also have to live with
   the results of economic decisions, they should have a say in what
   happens. In other words, in communist-anarchism, workers make the
   day-to-day decisions concerning their work and workplaces, while the
   social criteria behind these decisions are made by everyone. As
   anarchist society is based on free access and a resource is controlled
   by those who use it. It is a decentralised, participatory,
   self-managed, organisation whose members can secede at any time and in
   which all power and initiative arises from and flows back to the
   grassroots level. Such a society combines free association, federalism
   and self-management with communalised ownership. Free labour is its
   basis and socialisation exists to complement and protect it. Such a
   society-wide economic federation of this sort is not the same thing as
   a centralised state agency, as in the concept of nationalised or
   state-owned industry.

   The exact dynamics of a socialised self-managed system varies between
   anarchist schools. Most obviously, as discussed in [6]section I.3.6,
   while individualists view competition between workplaces as
   unproblematic and mutualists see its negative aspects but consider it
   necessary, collectivists and communists oppose it and argue that a free
   society can do without it. Moreover, socialisation should not be
   confused with forced collectivisation -- individuals and groups will be
   free not to join a syndicate and to experiment in different forms of
   economy (see [7]section I.3.7). Lastly, anarchists argue that such a
   system would be applicable to all economies, regardless of size and
   development, and aim for an economy based on appropriately sized
   technology (Marxist assertions not withstanding -- see [8]section
   I.3.8).

   Regardless of the kind of anarchy desired, anarchists all agree on the
   importance of decentralisation, free agreement and free association.
   Kropotkin's summary of what anarchy would look like gives an excellent
   feel of what sort of society anarchists desire:

     "harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law,
     or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded
     between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely
     constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for
     the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of
     a civilised being.

     "In a society developed on these lines . . . voluntary associations
     . . . would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite
     variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local,
     regional, national and international temporary or more or less
     permanent -- for all possible purposes: production, consumption and
     exchange, communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual
     protection, defence of the territory, and so on; and, on the other
     side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing number of
     scientific, artistic, literary and sociable needs.

     "Moreover, such a society would represent nothing immutable. On the
     contrary -- as is seen in organic life at large - harmony would (it
     is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and
     readjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces and
     influences, and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as
     none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the State."
     [Anarchism, p. 284]

   If this type of system sounds "utopian" it should be kept in mind that
   it was actually implemented and worked quite well in the collectivist
   economy organised during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, despite the
   enormous obstacles presented by an ongoing civil war as well as the
   relentless (and eventually successful) efforts of Republicans,
   Stalinists and Fascists to crush it (see [9]section I.8 for an
   introduction).

   As well as this (and other) examples of "anarchy in action" there have
   been other libertarian socialist economic systems described in writing.
   All share the common features of workers' self-management, co-operation
   and so on we discuss here and in [10]section I.4. These texts include
   Syndicalism by Tom Brown, The Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism by G.P.
   Maximoff, Guild Socialism Restated and Self-Government in Industry by
   G.D.H. Cole, After the Revolution by Diego Abad de Santillan, Anarchist
   Economics and Principles of Libertarian Economy by Abraham Guillen,
   Workers Councils and the Economics of a Self-Managed Society by
   Cornelius Castoriadis among others. A short summary of Spanish
   Anarchist visions of the free society can be found in chapter 3 of
   Robert Alexander's The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War (vol. 1).
   Some anarchists support what is called "Participatory Economics"
   (Parecon, for short) and The Political Economy of Participatory
   Economics and Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty
   First Century by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel are worth reading as
   they contain good introductions to that project.

   Fictional accounts include William Morris' News from Nowhere, the
   excellent The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, Women on the Edge of Time
   by Marge Piercy and The Last Capitalist by Steve Cullen. Iain M. Banks
   Culture novels are about an anarcho-communist society, but as they are
   so technologically advanced they can only give an insight into the aims
   of libertarian socialism and the mentality of people living in freedom
   (The State of the Art and The Player of Games contrast the Culture with
   hierarchical societies, the Earth in 1977 in the case of the former).

I.3.1 What is a "syndicate"?

   As we will use the term, a "syndicate" (also called a "producer
   co-operative", or "co-operative", for short, sometimes a "collective",
   "producers' commune", "association of producers", "guild factory" or
   "guild workplace") is a democratically self-managed productive
   enterprise whose assets are controlled by its workers. It is a useful
   generic term to describe the situation aimed at by anarchists where
   "associations of men and women who . . . work on the land, in the
   factories, in the mines, and so on, [are] themselves the managers of
   production." [Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment, p. 78]

   This means that where labour is collective, "the ownership of
   production should also be collective." "Each workshop, each factory,"
   correctly suggested James Guillaume, "will organise itself into an
   association of workers who will be free to administer production and
   organise their work as they think best, provided that the rights of
   each worker are safeguarded and the principles of equality and justice
   are observed." This applies to the land as well, for anarchism aims to
   answer "the question of how best to work the land and what form of
   possession is best." It does not matter whether peasants "keep their
   plots of land and continue to cultivate it with the help of their
   families" or whether they "take collective possession of the vast
   tracts of land and work them in common" as "the main purpose of the
   Revolution" has been achieved, namely that "the land is now the
   property of those who cultivate it, and the peasants no longer work for
   the profit of an idle exploiter who lives by their sweat." Any "former
   hired hands" will become "partners and share . . . the products which
   their common labour extracts from the land" as "the Revolution will
   have abolished agricultural wage slavery and peonage and the
   agricultural proletariat will consist only of free workers living in
   peace and plenty." As with industrial workplaces, the "internal
   organisation . . . need not necessarily be identical; organisational
   forms and procedures will vary greatly according to the preferences of
   the associated workers." The "administration of the community" could be
   "entrusted either to an individual or to a commission of many members,"
   for example, but would always be "elected by all the members." ["On
   Building the New Social Order", pp. 356-79, Bakunin on Anarchism, p.
   363, p. 359, p. 360 and p. 361]

   It must be noted that this libertarian goal of abolishing the
   hierarchical capitalist workplace and ending wage labour by associating
   and democratising industry is as old as anarchism itself. Thus we find
   Proudhon arguing in 1840 that the aim was a society of "possessors
   without masters" (rather than wage-labourers and tenants "controlled by
   proprietors") with "leaders, instructors, superintendents" and so forth
   being "chosen from the labourers by the labourers themselves." [What is
   Property?, p. 167 and p. 137]

   "Mutuality, reciprocity exists," Proudhon argued, "when all the workers
   in an industry, instead of working for an entrepreneur who pays them
   and keeps their products, work for one another and thus collaborate in
   the making of a common product whose profits they share amongst
   themselves. Extend the principle of reciprocity as uniting the work of
   every group, to the Workers' Societies as units, and you have created a
   form of civilisation which from all points of view -- political,
   economic and aesthetic -- is radically different from all earlier
   civilisations." In summary: "All associated and all free". [quoted by
   Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, pp. 29-30 and p. 30]

   Nor was this idea invented by Proudhon and other anarchists. Rather, it
   was first raised by workers themselves and subsequently taken up by the
   likes of Proudhon and Bakunin. So working class people came up with
   this fundamental libertarian socialist idea by themselves. The idea
   that wage labour would be replaced by associated labour was raised in
   many different countries in the 19th century. In France, it was during
   the wave of strikes and protests unleashed by the 1830 revolution. That
   year saw Parisian printers, for example, producing a newspaper
   (L'Artisan: Journal de la classes ouvriere) which suggested that the
   only way to stop being exploited by a master was for workers to form
   co-operatives. During the strikes of 1833, this was echoed by other
   skilled workers and so co-operatives were seen by many workers as a
   method of emancipation from wage labour. Proudhon even picked up the
   term Mutualisme from the workers in Lyon in the early 1840s and their
   ideas of co-operative credit, exchange and production influenced him as
   surely as he influenced them. In America, as Chomsky notes, "[i]f we go
   back to the labour activism from the early days of the industrial
   revolution, to the working class press in 1850s, and so on, its got a
   real anarchist strain to it. They never heard of European anarchism . .
   . It was spontaneous. They took for granted wage labour is little
   different from slavery, that workers should own the mills" [Anarchism
   Interview] As we noted in [11]section F.8.6, this was a commonplace
   response for working class people facing the rise of capitalism.

   In many ways a syndicate is similar to a co-operative under capitalism.
   Indeed, Proudhon pointed to such experiments as examples of what he
   desired, with "co-operative associations" being a key part of his
   "general liquidation" of capitalist society. [General Idea of the
   Revolution, p. 203] Bakunin, likewise, argued that anarchists are
   "convinced that the co-operative will be the preponderant form of
   social organisation in the future, in every branch of labour and
   science." [Basic Bakunin, p. 153] Therefore, even from the limited
   examples of co-operatives functioning in the capitalist market, the
   essential features of a libertarian socialist economy can be seen. The
   basic economic element, the workplace, will be a free association of
   individuals who will organise their joint work as equals. To quote
   Bakunin again, "[o]nly associated labour, that is, labour organised
   upon the principles of reciprocity and co-operation, is adequate to the
   task of maintaining . . . civilised society." [The Political Philosophy
   of Bakunin, p. 341]

   Co-operation in this context means that the policy decisions related to
   their association will be based on the principle of "one member, one
   vote," with administrative staff elected and held accountable to the
   workplace as a whole. In the words of economist David Ellerman: "Every
   enterprise should be legally reconstructured as a partnership of all
   who work in the enterprise. Every enterprise should be a democratic
   worker-owned firm." [The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 43]
   Anarchists, unsurprisingly, reject the Leninist idea that state
   property means the end of capitalism as simplistic and confused.
   Ownership is a juridical relationship. The real issue is one of
   management. Do the users of a resource manage it? If so, then we have a
   real (i.e. libertarian) socialist society. If not, we have some form of
   class society (for example, in the Soviet Union the state replaced the
   capitalist class but workers still had no official control over their
   labour or the product of that labour).

   Workplace self-management does not mean, as some apologists of
   capitalism suggest, that knowledge and skill will be ignored and all
   decisions made by everyone. This is an obvious fallacy, since
   engineers, for example, have a greater understanding of their work than
   non-engineers and under workers' self-management will control it
   directly:

     "we must understand clearly wherein this Guild democracy consists,
     and especially how it bears on relations between different classes
     of workers included in a single Guild. For since a Guild includes
     all the workers by hand and brain engaged in a common service, it is
     clear that there will be among its members very wide divergences of
     function, of technical skill, and of administrative authority.
     Neither the Guild as a whole nor the Guild factory can determine all
     issues by the expedient of the mass vote, nor can Guild democracy
     mean that, on all questions, each member is to count as one and none
     more than one. A mass vote on a matter of technique understood only
     by a few experts would be a manifest absurdity, and, even if the
     element of technique is left out of account, a factory administered
     by constant mass votes would be neither efficient nor at all a
     pleasant place to work in. There will be in the Guilds technicians
     occupying special positions by virtue of their knowledge, and there
     will be administrators possessing special authority by virtue both
     of skill and ability and of personal qualifications." [G.D.H. Cole,
     Guild Socialism Restated, pp. 50-51]

   The fact that some decision-making has been delegated in this manner
   sometimes leads people to ask whether a syndicate would not just be
   another form of hierarchy. The answer is that it would not be
   hierarchical because the workers' assemblies and their councils, open
   to all workers, would decide what types of decision-making to delegate,
   thus ensuring that ultimate power rests at the base. Moreover, power
   would not be delegated. Malatesta clearly indicates the difference
   between administrative decisions and policy decisions:

     "Of course in every large collective undertaking, a division of
     labour, technical management, administration, etc. is necessary. But
     authoritarians clumsily play on words to produce a raison dtre for
     government out of the very real need for the organisation of work.
     Government, it is well to repeat, is the concourse of individuals
     who have had, or seized, the right and the means to make laws and to
     oblige people to obey; the administrator, the engineer, etc.,
     instead are people who are appointed or assume the responsibility to
     carry out a particular job and so on. Government means the
     delegation of power, that is the abdication of initiative and
     sovereignty of all into the hands of a few; administration means the
     delegation of work, that is tasks given and received, free exchange
     of services based on free agreement . . . Let one not confuse the
     function of government with that of an administration, for they are
     essentially different, and if today the two are often confused, it
     is only because of economic and political privilege." [Anarchy, pp.
     41-2]

   Given that power remains in the hands of the workplace assembly, it is
   clear that the organisation required for every collective endeavour
   cannot be equated with government. Also, never forget that
   administrative staff are elected by and accountable to the rest of an
   association. If, for example, it turned out that a certain type of
   delegated decision-making activity was being abused, it could be
   revoked by the whole workforce. Because of this grassroots control,
   there is every reason to think that crucial types of decision-making
   activity which could become a source of power (and so with the
   potential for seriously affecting all workers' lives) would not be
   delegated but would remain with the workers' assemblies. For example,
   powers that are now exercised in an authoritarian manner by managers
   under capitalism, such as those of hiring and firing, introducing new
   production methods or technologies, changing product lines, relocating
   production facilities, determining the nature, pace and rhythm of
   productive activity and so on would remain in the hands of the
   associated producers and not be delegated to anyone.

   New syndicates will be created upon the initiative of individuals
   within communities. These may be the initiative of workers in an
   existing syndicate who desire to expand production, or members of the
   local community who see that the current syndicates are not providing
   adequately in a specific area of life. Either way, the syndicate will
   be a voluntary association for producing useful goods or services and
   would spring up and disappear as required. Therefore, an anarchist
   society would see syndicates developing spontaneously as individuals
   freely associate to meet their needs, with both local and confederal
   initiatives taking place.

   While having a common basis in co-operative workplaces, different forms
   of anarchism see them work in different ways. Under mutualism, workers
   organise themselves into syndicates and share in its gains and losses.
   This means that in "the labour-managed firm there is no profit, only
   income to be divided among members. Without employees the
   labour-managed firm does not have a wage bill, and labour costs are not
   counted among the expenses to the subtracted from profit, as they are
   in the capitalist firm." The "labour-managed firm does not hire labour.
   It is a collective of workers that hires capital and necessary
   materials." [Christopher Eaton Gunn, Workers' Self-Management in the
   United States, pp. 41-2] In this way, Proudhon and his followers
   argued, exploitation would end and workers would receive the
   full-product of their labour. This, it should be noted, does not mean
   that workers consume all the proceeds of sales in personal consumption
   (i.e., no investment). It means that labour controls what to do with
   the sales income, i.e., how much to invest and how much to allocate to
   consumption:

     "If Labour appropriated the whole product, that would include
     appropriating the liabilities for the property used up in the
     production process in addition to appropriating the produced
     outputs. Present Labour would have to pay input suppliers (e.g.,
     past labour) to satisfy those liabilities." [Ellerman, Op. Cit., p.
     24]

   So under mutualism, surpluses (profits) would be either equally divided
   between all members of the co-operative or divided unequally on the
   basis of the type of work done, with the percentages allotted to each
   type being decided by democratic vote, on the principle of one worker,
   one vote. Worker co-operatives of this type do have the virtue of
   preventing the exploitation and oppression of labour by capital, since
   workers are not hired for wages but, in effect, become partners in the
   firm. This means that the workers control both the product of their
   labour (so that the value-added that they produce is not appropriated
   by a privileged elite) and the work process itself (and so they no
   longer sell their liberty to others). However, such a limited form of
   co-operation is rejected by most anarchists. Non-mutualist anarchists
   argue that this, at best, is but a step in the right direction and the
   ultimate aim is distribution according to need.

   Production for use rather than profit/money is the key concept that
   distinguishes collectivist and communist forms of anarchism from the
   competitive mutualism advocated by Proudhon. This is for two reasons.
   First, because of the harmful effects of markets we indicated in
   [12]section I.1.3 could make co-operatives become, in effect,
   "collective capitalists" and compete against each other in the market
   as ferociously as actual capitalists. As Kropotkin put it, while
   co-operation had "at its origin . . . an essentially mutual aid
   character", it "is often described as 'joint-stock individualism'" and
   "such as it is now, it undoubtedly tends to breed a co-operative
   egotism, not only towards the community at large, but also among the
   co-operators themselves." [Mutual Aid, p. 214] While he was discussing
   co-operatives under capitalism, his worries are equally applicable to a
   mutualist system of competing syndicates. This would also lead to a
   situation where market forces ensured that the workers involved made
   irrational decisions (from both a social and individual point of view)
   in order to survive in the market. For mutualists, this "irrationality
   of rationality" is the price to be paid to ensure workers receive the
   full product of their labour and, moreover, any attempt to overcome
   this problem holds numerous dangers to freedom. Other social anarchists
   disagree. They think co-operation between workplaces can increase, not
   reduce, freedom. Second, as discussed in [13]section I.1.4,
   distribution according to work does not take into account the different
   needs of the workers (nor non-workers like the ill, the young and the
   old). As such, mutualism does not produce what most anarchists would
   consider a decent society, one where people co-operate to make a decent
   life for all.

   What about entry into a syndicate? In the words of Cole, guilds
   (syndicates) are "open associations which any man [or woman] may join"
   but "this does not mean, of course, that any person will be able to
   claim admission, as an absolute right, into the guild of his choice."
   This means that there may be training requirements (for example) and
   obviously "a man [or woman] clearly cannot get into a Guild unless it
   needs fresh recruits for its work. [The worker] will have free choice,
   but only of the available openings." [Op. Cit., p. 75] As David
   Ellerman notes, it is important to remember that "the labour market
   would not exist" in a self-managed economy as labour would "always be
   the residual claimant." This means that capital would not be hiring
   labour as under capitalism, rather workers would be seeking out
   associations to join. "There would be a job market in the sense of
   people looking for firms they could join," Ellerman continues, "but it
   would not be a labour market in the sense of the selling of labour in
   the employment contract." [Op. Cit., p. 91]

   All schools of social anarchism, therefore, are based on the use rights
   resting in the specific syndicate while ownership would be socialised
   rather than limited to the syndicate's workers. This would ensure free
   access to the means of production as new members of a syndicate would
   have the same rights and power as existing members. If this were not
   the case, then the new members would be the wage slaves of existing
   ones and it is precisely to avoid this that anarchists argue for
   socialisation (see [14]section I.3.3). With socialisation, free access
   is guaranteed and so all workers are in the same position so ensuring
   self-management and no return to workplace hierarchy.

   Obviously, as in any society, an individual may not be able to pursue
   the work they are most interested in (although given the nature of an
   anarchist society they would have the free time to pursue it as a
   hobby). However, we can imagine that an anarchist society would take an
   interest in ensuring a fair distribution of work and so would try to
   arrange work sharing if a given work placement is popular (see
   [15]section I.4.13 on the question of who will do unpleasant work, and
   for more on work allocation generally, in an anarchist society).

   Of course there may be the danger of a syndicate or guild trying to
   restrict entry from an ulterior motive, as such the exploitation of
   monopoly power vis--vis other groups in society. However, in an
   anarchist society individuals would be free to form their own
   syndicates and this would ensure that such activity is self-defeating.
   In addition, in a non-individualist anarchist system, syndicates would
   be part of a confederation (see [16]section I.3.4). It is a
   responsibility of the inter-syndicate congresses to assure that
   membership and employment in the syndicates is not restricted in any
   anti-social way. If an individual or group of individuals felt that
   they had been unfairly excluded from a syndicate then an investigation
   into the case would be organised at the congress. In this way any
   attempts to restrict entry would be reduced (assuming they occurred to
   begin with). And, of course, individuals are free to form new
   syndicates or leave the confederation if they so desire.

   With the question of entry into syndicates comes the question of
   whether there would be enough places for those seeking to work (what
   could be termed "unemployment"). Ultimately, there are always an
   objective number of places available in a workplace: there is little
   point having people join a syndicate if there are no machines or
   materials for them to work on! Would a self-managed economy ensure that
   there are enough places available for those who seek them?

   Perhaps unsurprisingly, neo-classical economics says no and equally
   unsurprisingly this conclusion is based not on empirical evidence of
   real co-operatives but rather on an abstract model developed in 1958.
   The model is based on deducing the implications of assuming that a
   labour-managed ("'Illyrian") firm will seek to maximise net income per
   worker rather than, in a capitalist firm, maximising net profit. This
   results in various perverse results compared to a capitalist firm. This
   makes a co-operative-based economy extremely unstable and inefficient,
   as well as leading to co-operatives firing workers when prices rise as
   this maximises income per (remaining) worker. Thus a co-operative
   system ends in "producing less output and using less labour than its
   capitalist counterpart." [Benjamin Ward, "The Firm in Illyria: Market
   Syndicalism", pp. 566-589, The American Economic Review, Vol. 48, No.
   4, p. 580]

   Of course, it would be churlish to note that, unlike the theory, actual
   capitalism is marked by extensive unemployment (as noted in [17]section
   C.1.5, this is not surprising as it is required to secure bosses' power
   over their wage slaves). It would be equally churlish to note that, to
   quote one Yugoslav economist, this is "a theory whose predictions have
   absolutely nothing to do with the observed facts." [Branko Horvat, "The
   Theory of the Worker-Managed Firm Revisited", pp. 9-25, Journal of
   Comparative Economics, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 9] As David Ellerman
   summarises:

     "It might be noted parenthetically that there is a whole academic
     literature on what is called the 'Illyrian firm' . . . The main
     peculiarity of this model is that it assumes the firm would expel
     members when that would increase the net income of the surviving
     members. The resulting short-run perversities have endeared the
     model to capitalist economists. Yet the Illyrian model had been an
     academic toy in the grand tradition of much of modern economics. The
     predicted short-run behaviour has not been observed in Yugoslavia or
     elsewhere, and worker-managed firms such as the Mondragon
     co-operatives take membership as a short-run fixed factor . . .
     Hence we will continue to treat the Illyrian model with its
     much-deserved neglect." [Op. Cit., p. 150]

   The experience of self-managed collectives during the Spanish
   Revolution also confirms this, with collectives sharing work equitably
   in order to avoid laying people off during the harsh economic
   conditions caused by the Civil War (for example, one collective
   "adopted a three-day workweek, dividing available work among all those
   who had worked at the plant -- thereby avoiding unemployment -- and
   continued to pay everyone his or her basic salary" [Martha A.
   Ackelsberg, Free Women of Spain, p. 101]).

   We need, therefore, to "appeal to empirical reality and common sense"
   when evaluating the claim of neo-classical economics on the issue of
   co-operatives. The "empirical evidence supports" the argument that this
   model is flawed. There "has been no tendency for workers to lay off
   co-workers when times are good, neither in Mondragon nor in Yugoslavia.
   Even in bad times, layoffs are rare." Unsurprisingly, "in the short
   run, a worker-managed firm responds in the same fashion as a capitalist
   firm" and workers are added to the collective to meet increases in
   demand. [David Schweickart, Against Capitalism, p. 91, p. 92 and p. 93]
   A conclusion shared by economist Geoffrey M. Hodgson:

     "Much of the evidence we do have about the behaviour of real-world
     worker co-operatives is that they respond to changes in market
     prices in a similar manner to the capitalist firm . . . Accordingly,
     the basic assumptions in the model are questioned by the evidence."
     [Economics and Utopia, pp. 223-4]

   So, as Branko Horvat observes, in spite of the neo-classical analysis
   producing specific predictions the "mere fact that nothing of the kind
   has ever been observed in real-world economies leaves them
   undisturbed." At most they would say that a "self-managed firm may not
   behave as the theory predicts, but this is because it behaves
   irrationally. If something is wrong, it is not the theory but the
   reality." Interestingly, though, if you assume that capitalist firms
   "maximise the rate of profit, profit per unit invested" rather than
   total profit then neo-classical theory "generates equally absurd
   results." That is why the distinction between short and long runs was
   invented, so that in the short run the amount of capital is fixed. If
   this is applied to a co-operative, so that "in the short run, the work
   force is fixed" then the alleged problems with labour-managed
   workplaces disappear. Needless to say, a real co-operative acts on the
   assumption that the work force is fixed and as "the workers are no
   longer hired" this means that the worker-managers "do not fire their
   colleagues when business is slack; they reduce work time or work for
   inventories. When the demand temporarily increases, they work overtime
   or contract outside work." [Op. Cit., pp. 11-13]

   In summary, the neo-classical theory of the labour-managed firm has as
   much relation to a real co-operative as neo-classical economics
   generally does to capitalism. Significantly, "Austrian" economists
   generally accept the neo-classical theory of co-operatives (in part,
   undoubtedly, as it confirms their dislike of all forms of socialism).
   Even one as sympathetic to self-management as David L. Prychitko
   accepts it, simply criticising because it "reduces the firm to a
   short-run objective function" and "as long as market entry is allowed,
   the labour-managed market sheds any possible instability problem."
   [Markets, Planning and Democracy, p. 81] While correct, this criticism
   totally misses the point. Yes, in the long run other co-operatives
   would be set up and this would increase supply of goods, increase
   employment and so forth, yet this should not blind us to the
   limitations of the assumptions which drives the neo-classical theory.

   To sum up, syndicates are voluntary associations of workers who manage
   their workplace and their own work. Within the syndicate, the decisions
   which affect how the workplace develops and changes are in the hands of
   those who work there. In addition, it means that each section of the
   workforce manages its own activity and sections and that all workers
   placed in administration tasks (i.e. "management") are subject to
   election and recall by those who are affected by their decisions. The
   workers' self-management is discussed in the [18]next section.

   Finally, two things. First, as noted in [19]section G.1.3 a few
   individualist anarchists, although not all, were not opposed to
   (non-exploitative) wage labour and so did not place co-operatives at
   the centre of their ideas. This position is very much a minority in the
   anarchist tradition as it is not consistent with libertarian principles
   nor likely to end the exploitation of labour (see [20]section G.4.1),
   so making most anarchists think such individualism is inconsistent
   anarchism (see [21]section G.4.2). Secondly, it is important to note
   that individuals who do not wish to join syndicates will be able to
   work for themselves. There is no "forced collectivisation" under any
   form of libertarian socialism, because coercing people is incompatible
   with the basic principles of anarchism. Those who wish to be
   self-employed will have free access to the productive assets they need,
   provided that they neither attempt to monopolise more of those assets
   than they and their families can use by themselves nor attempt to
   employ others for wages (see [22]section I.3.7).

I.3.2 What is workers' self-management?

   Quite simply, workers' self-management (sometimes called "workers'
   control") means that all workers affected by a decision have an equal
   voice in making it, on the principle of "one worker, one vote." Thus
   "revolution has launched us on the path of industrial democracy."
   [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 63] That is, workers
   "ought to be the real managers of industries." [Peter Kropotkin,
   Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 157] This is essential to
   ensure "a society of equals, who will not be compelled to sell their
   hands and their brains to those who choose to employ them . . . but who
   will be able to apply their knowledge and capacities to production, in
   an organism so constructed as to combine all the efforts for procuring
   the greatest possible well-being for all, while full, free scope will
   be left for every individual initiative." [Kropotkin, Kropotkin:
   Selections from his Writings, pp. 113-4] As Chomsky put it:

     "Compassion, solidarity, friendship are also human needs. They are
     driving needs, no less than the desire to increase one's share of
     commodities or to improve working conditions. Beyond this, I do not
     doubt that it is a fundamental human need to take an active part in
     the democratic control of social institutions. If this is so, then
     the demand for industrial democracy should become a central goal of
     any revitalised left with a working-class base." [Radical
     Priorities, p. 191]

   As noted earlier, however, we need to be careful when using the term
   "workers' control," as others use it and give it an entirely different
   meaning from the one intended by anarchists. Like the terms "anarchist"
   and "libertarian," it has been co-opted by others to describe less than
   libertarian schemes.

   The first to do so were the Leninists, starting with Lenin, who have
   used the term "workers' control" to describe a situation were workers
   have a limited supervision over either the capitalists or the appointed
   managers of the so-called workers' state. These do not equate to what
   anarchists aim for and, moreover, such limited experiments have not
   lasted long (see [23]section H.3.14). More recently, "workers' control"
   have been used by capitalists to describe schemes in which workers'
   have more say in how their workplaces are run while maintaining wage
   slavery (i.e. capitalist ownership, power and ultimate control). So, in
   the hands of capitalists, "workers' control" is now referred to by such
   terms as "participation", "co-determination", "consensus",
   "empowerment", "Japanese-style management," etc. "For those whose
   function it is solve the new problems of boredom and alienation in the
   workplace in advanced industrial capitalism, workers' control is seen
   as a hopeful solution", Sam Dolgoff noted, "a solution in which workers
   are given a modicum of influence, a strictly limited area of
   decision-making power, a voice at best secondary in the control of
   conditions of the workplace. Workers' control, in a limited form
   sanctioned by the capitalists, is held to be the answer to the growing
   non-economic demands of the workers." [The Anarchist Collectives, p.
   81]

   The new managerial fad of "quality circles" -- meetings where workers
   are encouraged to contribute their ideas on how to improve the
   company's product and increase the efficiency with which it is made --
   is an example of "workers' control" as conceived by capitalists.
   However, when it comes to questions such as what products to make,
   where to make them, and (especially) how revenues from sales should be
   divided, capitalists and managers do not ask for or listen to workers'
   "input." So much for "democratisation," "empowerment," and
   "participation"! In reality, capitalistic "workers control" is merely
   an another insidious attempt to make workers more willing and
   "co-operative" partners in their own exploitation. Needless to say,
   such schemes are phoney as they never place real power in the hands of
   workers. In the end, the owners and their managers have the final say
   (and so hierarchy remains) and, of course, profits are still extracted
   from the workforce.

   Hence anarchists prefer the term workers' self-management, a concept
   which refers to the exercise of workers' power through collectivisation
   and federation. It means "a transition from private to collective
   ownership" which, in turn, "call[s] for new relationships among the
   members of the working community." [Abel Paz, The Spanish Civil War, p.
   55] Self-management in this sense "is not a new form of mediation
   between the workers and their capitalist bosses, but instead refers to
   the very process by which the workers themselves overthrow their
   managers and take on their own management and the management of
   production in their own workplace. Self-management means the
   organisation of all workers . . . into a workers' council or factory
   committee (or agricultural syndicate), which makes all the decisions
   formerly made by the owners and managers." [Dolgoff, Op. Cit., p. 81]
   Self-management means the end of hierarchy and authoritarian social
   relationships in workplace and their replacement by free agreement,
   collective decision-making, direct democracy, social equality and
   libertarian social relationships.

   As anarchists use the term, workers' self-management means collective
   worker ownership, control and direction of all aspects of production,
   distribution and investment. This is achieved through
   participatory-democratic workers' assemblies, councils and federations,
   in both agriculture and industry. These bodies would perform all the
   functions formerly reserved for capitalist owners, managers, executives
   and financiers where these activities actually relate to productive
   activity rather than the needs to maximise minority profits and power
   (in which case they would disappear along with hierarchical
   management). These workplace assemblies will be complemented by
   people's financial institutions or federations of syndicates which
   perform all functions formerly reserved for capitalist owners,
   executives, and financiers in terms of allocating investment funds or
   resources.

   Workers' self-management is based around general meetings of the whole
   workforce, held regularly in every industrial or agricultural
   syndicate. These are the source of and final authority over decisions
   affecting policy within the workplace as well as relations with other
   syndicates. These meeting elect workplace councils whose job is to
   implement the decisions of these assemblies and to make the day to day
   administration decisions that will crop up. These councils are directly
   accountable to the workforce and its members subject to re-election and
   instant recall. It is also likely that membership of these councils
   will be rotated between all members of the syndicate to ensure that no
   one monopolises an administrative position. In addition, smaller
   councils and assemblies would be organised for divisions, units and
   work teams as circumstances dictate.

   In this way, workers would manage their own collective affairs
   together, as free and equal individuals. They would associate together
   to co-operate without subjecting themselves to an authority over
   themselves. Their collective decisions would remain under their control
   and power. This means that self-management creates "an organisation so
   constituted that by affording everyone the fullest enjoyment of his [or
   her] liberty, it does not permit anyone to rise above the others nor
   dominate them in any way but through the natural influence of the
   intellectual and moral qualities which he [or she] possesses, without
   this influence ever being imposed as a right and without leaning upon
   any political institution whatever." [The Political Philosophy of
   Bakunin, p. 271] Only by convincing your fellow associates of the
   soundness of your ideas can those ideas become the agreed plan of the
   syndicate. No one is in a position to impose their ideas simply because
   of the post they hold or the work they do.

   Most anarchists think that it is likely that purely administrative
   tasks and decisions would be delegated to elected individuals in this
   way, freeing workers and assemblies to concentrate on important
   activities and decisions rather than being bogged down in trivial
   details. As Bakunin put it:

     "Is not administrative work just as necessary to production as is
     manual labour -- if not more so? Of course, production would be
     badly crippled, if not altogether suspended, without efficient and
     intelligent management. But from the standpoint of elementary
     justice and even efficiency, the management of production need not
     be exclusively monopolised by one or several individuals. And
     managers are not at all entitled to more pay. The co-operative
     workers associations have demonstrated that the workers themselves,
     choosing administrators from their own ranks, receiving the same
     pay, can efficiency control and operate industry. The monopoly of
     administration, far from promoting the efficiency of production, on
     the contrary only enhances the power and privileges of the owners
     and their managers." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 424]

   What is important is that what is considered as important or trivial,
   policy or administration rests with the people affected by the
   decisions and subject to their continual approval. Anarchists do not
   make a fetish of direct democracy and recognise that there is more
   important things in life than meetings and voting! While workers'
   assemblies play the key role in self-management, it is not the focal
   point of all decisions. Rather it is the place where all the important
   policy decisions are made, administrative decisions are ratified or
   rejected and what counts as a major decision determined. Needless to
   say, what is considered as important issues will be decided upon by the
   workers themselves in their assemblies.

   Unsurprisingly, anarchists argue that, as well as being more free,
   workers self-management is more efficient and productive than the
   hierarchical capitalist firm (efficiency here means accomplishing goals
   without wasting valued assets). Capitalist firms fail to tap humanitys
   vast reservoir of practical knowledge, indeed they block it as any
   application of that knowledge is used to enrich the owners rather than
   those who generate and use it. Thus the hierarchical firm
   disenfranchises employees and reduces them to the level of order-takers
   with an obvious loss of information, knowledge and insight (as
   discussed in [24]section I.1.1). With self-management, that vast source
   of knowledge and creativity can be expressed. Thus, self-management and
   worker ownership "should also reap other rewards through the greater
   motivation and productivity of the workers." [David Ellerman, The
   Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 139]

   This explains why some firms try to simulate workers' control (by
   profit-sharing or "participation" schemes). For, as market socialist
   David Schweickart notes, "the empirical evidence is overwhelming" and
   supports those who argue for workers' participation. The "evidence is
   strong that both worker participation in management and profit sharing
   tend to enhance productivity and that worker-run enterprises often are
   more productive than their capitalist counterparts." [Against
   Capitalism, p. 100] In fact, 94% of 226 studies into this issue showed
   a positive impact, with 60% being statistically significant, and so the
   empirical evidence is "generally supportive of a positive link between
   profit sharing and productivity." This applies to co-operatives as
   well. [Martin L. Weitzman and Douglas L. Kruse, "Profit Sharing and
   Productivity", pp. 95-140, Paying for Productivity, Alan S. Blinder
   (ed.), p. 137, p. 139 and pp. 131-2] Another study concludes that the
   "available evidence is strongly suggestive that for employee ownership
   . . . to have a strong impact on performance, it needs to be
   accompanied by provisions for worker participation in decision making."
   In addition, "narrow differences in wages and status", as anarchists
   have long argued, "increase productivity". [David I. Levine and Laura
   D'Andrea Tyson, "Participation, Productivity, and the Firm's
   Environment", pp. 183-237, Op. Cit., p. 210 and p. 211]

   This should be unsurprising, for as Geoffrey M. Hodgson notes, the
   neo-classical model of co-operatives "wrongly assume[s] that social
   relations and technology are separable . . . Yet we have much evidence
   . . . to support the contention that participation and co-operation can
   increase technological efficiency. Production involves people -- their
   ideas and aspirations -- and not simply machines operating under the
   laws of physics. It seems that, in their search for pretty diagrams and
   tractable mathematical models, mainstream economists often forget
   this." [Economics and Utopia, p. 223]

   Therefore anarchists have strong evidence to support Herbert Read's
   comment that libertarian socialism would "provide a standard of living
   far higher than that realised under any previous form of social
   organisation." [Anarchy and Order, p. 49] It confirms Cole's comment
   that the "key to real efficiency is self-government; and any system
   that is not based upon self-government is not only servile, but also
   inefficient. Just as the labour of the wage-slave is better than the
   labour of the chattel-slave, so . . . will the labour of the free man
   [and woman] be better than either." [Self-Government in Industry, p.
   157] Yet it is important to remember, as important as this evidence is,
   real social change comes not from "efficiency" concerns but from ideals
   and principles. While anarchists are confident that workers'
   self-management will be more efficient and productive than capitalism,
   this is a welcome side-effect of the deeper goal of increasing freedom.
   The evidence confirms that freedom is the best solution for social
   problems but if, for example, slavery or wage-labour proved to be more
   productive than free, associated, labour it does not make them more
   desirable!

   A self-managed workplace, like a self-managed society in general, does
   not mean that specialised knowledge (where it is meaningful) will be
   neglected or not taken into account. Quite the opposite. Specialists
   (i.e. workers who are interested in a given area of work and gain an
   extensive understanding of it) are part of the assembly of the
   workplace, just like other workers. They can and have to be listened
   to, like anyone else, and their expert advice included in the decision
   making process. Anarchists do not reject the idea of expertise nor the
   rational authority associated with it. As we indicated in [25]section
   B.1, anarchists recognise the difference between being an authority
   (i.e. having knowledge of a given subject) and being in authority (i.e.
   having power over someone else). as discussed in [26]section H.4, we
   reject the latter and respect the former.

   Such specialisation does not imply the end of self-management, but
   rather the opposite. "The greatest intelligence," Bakunin argued,
   "would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results,
   for science as well as industry, the necessity of the division and
   association of labour." [God and the State, p. 33] Thus specialised
   knowledge is part of the associated workers and not placed above them
   in positions of power. The other workers in a syndicate can compliment
   the knowledge of the specialists with the knowledge of the work process
   they have gained by working and so enrich the decision. Knowledge is
   distributed throughout society and only a society of free individuals
   associated as equals and managing their own activity can ensure that it
   is applied effectively (part of the inefficiency of capitalism results
   from the barriers to knowledge and information flow created by its
   hierarchical workplace).

   A workplace assembly is perfectly able to listen to an engineer, for
   example, who suggests various ways of reaching various goals (i.e. if
   you want X, you would have to do A or B. If you do A, then C, D and E
   is required. If B is decided upon, then F, G, H and I are entailed).
   But it is the assembly, not the engineer, that decides what goals and
   methods to be implemented. As Cornelius Castoriadis put it: "We are not
   saying: people will have to decide what to do, and then technicians
   will tell them how to do it. We say: after listening to technicians,
   people will decide what to do and how to do it. For the how is not
   neutral -- and the what is not disembodied. What and how are neither
   identical, nor external to each other. A 'neutral' technique is, of
   course, an illusion. A conveyor belt is linked to a type of product and
   a type of producer -- and vice versa." [Social and Political Writings,
   vol. 3, p. 265]

   However, we must stress that while an anarchist society would "inherit"
   a diverse level of expertise and specialisation from class society, it
   would not take this as unchangeable. Anarchists argue for "all-round"
   (or integral) education as a means of ensuring that everyone has a
   basic knowledge or understanding of science, engineering and other
   specialised tasks. As Bakunin argued, "in the interests of both labour
   and science . . . there should no longer be either workers or scholars
   but only human beings." Education must "prepare every child of each sex
   for the life of thought as well as for the life of labour." [The Basic
   Bakunin, p. 116 and p. 119] This does not imply the end of all
   specialisation (individuals will, of course, express their
   individuality and know more about certain subjects than others) but it
   does imply the end of the artificial specialisation developed under
   capitalism which tries to deskill and disempower the wage worker by
   concentrating knowledge into hands of management.

   And, just to state the obvious, self-management does not imply that the
   mass of workers decide on the application of specialised tasks.
   Self-management implies the autonomy of those who do the work as well
   as collective decision making on collective issues. For example, in a
   self-managed hospital the cleaning staff would not have a say in the
   doctors' treatment of patients just as the doctors would not tell the
   cleaners how to do their work (of course, it is likely that an
   anarchist society will not have people whose work is simply to clean
   and nothing else, we just use this as an example people will
   understand). All members of a syndicate would have a say in what
   happens in the workplace as it affects them collectively, but
   individual workers and groups of workers would manage their own
   activity within that collective.

   Needless to say, self-management abolishes the division of labour
   inherent in capitalism between order takers and order givers. It
   integrates (to use Kropotkin's words) brain work and manual work by
   ensuring that those who do the work also manage it and that a workplace
   is managed by those who use it. Such an integration of labour will,
   undoubtedly, have a massive impact in terms of productivity, innovation
   and efficiency. As Kropotkin argued, the capitalist firm has a negative
   impact on those subject to its hierarchical and alienating structures:

     "The worker whose task has been specialised by the permanent
     division of labour has lost the intellectual interest in his [or
     her] labour, and it is especially so in the great industries; he has
     lost his inventive powers. Formerly, he [or she] invented very much
     . . . But since the great factory has been enthroned, the worker,
     depressed by the monotony of his [or her] work, invents no more."
     [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 171]

   Must all the skills, experience and intelligence that very one has be
   swept away or crushed by hierarchy? Or could it not become a new
   fertile source of progress under a better organisation of production?
   Self-management would ensure that the independence, initiative and
   inventiveness of workers (which disappears under wage slavery) comes to
   the fore and is applied. Combined with the principles of "all-round"
   (or integral) education (see [27]section J.5.13) who can deny that
   working people could transform the current economic system to ensure
   "well-being for all"? And we must stress that by "well-being" we mean
   well-being in terms of meaningful, productive activity in humane
   surroundings and using appropriate technology, in terms of goods of
   utility and beauty to help create strong, healthy bodies and in terms
   of surroundings which are inspiring to live in and ecologically
   integrated.

   Little wonder Kropotkin argued that self-management and the "erasing
   [of] the present distinction between the brain workers and manual
   worker" would see "social benefits" arising from "the concordance of
   interest and harmony so much wanted in our times of social struggles"
   and "the fullness of life which would result for each separate
   individual, if he [or she] were enabled to enjoy the use of both . . .
   mental and bodily powers." This is in addition to the "increase of
   wealth which would result from having . . . educated and well-trained
   producers." [Op. Cit., p. 180]

   Let us not forget that today workers do manage their own working time
   to a considerable extent. The capitalist may buy a hour of a workers'
   time but they have to ensure that the worker follows their orders
   during that time. Workers resist this imposition and this results in
   considerable shop-floor conflict. Frederick Taylor, for example,
   introduced his system of "scientific management" in part to try and
   stop workers managing their own working activity. As David Noble notes,
   workers "paced themselves for many reason: to keep time for themselves,
   to avoid exhaustion, to exercise authority over their work, to avoid
   killing so-called gravy piece-rate jobs by overproducing and risking a
   pay cut, to stretch out available work for fear of layoffs, to exercise
   their creativity, and, last but not least, to express their solidarity
   and their hostility to management." These were "[c]oupled with
   collective co-operation with their fellows on the floor" and
   "labour-prescribed norms of behaviour" to achieve "shop floor control
   over production." [Forces of Production, p. 33] This is why working to
   rule" is such an efficient weapon in the class struggle (see
   [28]section H.4.4) In other words, workers naturally tend towards
   self-management anyway and it is this natural movement towards liberty
   during work hours which is combated by bosses (who wins, of course,
   depends on objective and subjective pressures which swing the balance
   of power towards labour or capital).

   Self-management will built upon this already existing unofficial
   workers control over production and, of course, our knowledge of the
   working process which actually doing it creates. The conflict over who
   controls the shop floor -- either those who do the work or those who
   give the orders -- not only shows that self-management is possible but
   also show how it can come about as it brings to the fore the awkward
   fact that while the bosses need us, we do not need them!

I.3.3 What does socialisation mean?

   A key aspect of anarchism is the socialisation of the means of life.
   This means that the land, housing, workplaces and so forth become
   common property, usable by all who need them. Thus Emma Goldman's
   summary:

     "That each and every individual is and ought to be free to own
     himself and to enjoy the full fruit of his labour; that man is
     absolved from all allegiance to the kings of authority and capital;
     that he has, by the very fact of his being, free access to the land
     and all means of production, and entire liberty of disposing of the
     fruits of his efforts; that each and every individual has the
     unquestionable right of free and voluntary association with other
     equally sovereign individuals for economic, political, social, and
     other purposes, and that to achieve this end man must emancipate
     himself from the sacredness of property, the respect for man-made
     law, the fear of the Church, the cowardice of public opinion, the
     stupid arrogance of national, racial, religious, and sex
     superiority, and from the narrow puritanical conception of human
     life." [A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 2, pp.
     450-1]

   This is required because private ownership of collectively used
   "property" (such as workplaces and land) results in a situation where
   the many have to sell their labour (i.e., liberty) to the few who own
   it. This creates hierarchical and authoritarian social relationships as
   well as economic classes. For anarchists, society cannot be divided
   into "a possessing and a non-possessing" class system as this is "a
   condition of social injustice" as well as making the state
   "indispensable to the possessing minority for the protection of its
   privileges." [Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 11] In other
   words, "as long as land and capital are unappropriated, the workers are
   free, and that, when these have a master, the workers also are slaves."
   [Charlotte M. Wilson, Anarchist Essays, p. 21]

   While there is a tendency by state socialists and the right to equate
   socialisation with nationalisation, there are key differences which the
   different names signify. Nationalisation, in practice and usually in
   theory, means that the means of life become state property. This means
   that rather than those who need and use a specific part of the
   co-operative commonwealth deciding what to do with it, the government
   does. As we discussed in [29]section B.3.5 this would just be state
   capitalism, with the state replacing the current capitalist and
   landlords.

   As Emma Goldman argued, there is a clear difference between
   socialisation and nationalisation. "The first requirement of
   Communism," she argued, "is the socialisation of the land and of the
   machinery of production and distribution. Socialised land and machinery
   belong to the people, to be settled upon and used by individuals and
   groups according to their needs." Nationalisation, on the other hand,
   means that a resource "belongs to the state; that is, the government
   has control of it and may dispose of it according to its wishes and
   views." She stressed that "when a thing is socialised, every individual
   has free access to it and may use it without interference from anyone."
   When the state owned property, "[s]uch a state of affairs may be called
   state capitalism, but it would be fantastic to consider it in any sense
   communistic." [Red Emma Speaks, pp. 406-7]

   Socialisation aims at replacing property rights by use rights. The key
   to understanding socialisation is to remember that it is about free
   access. In other words, that every one has the same rights to the means
   of life as everyone else, that no one is exploited or oppressed by
   those who own the means of life. In the words of Herbert Read:

     "The essential principle of anarchism is that mankind has reached a
     stage of development at which it is possible to abolish the old
     relationship of master-man (capitalist-proletarian) and substitute a
     relationship of egalitarian co-operation. This principle is based,
     not only on ethical ground, but also on economic grounds." [Anarchy
     and Order, p. 92]

   This implies two things. Firstly, that the means of life are common
   property, without an owning class. Secondly, there is free association
   between equals within any association and so industrial democracy (or
   self-management).

   This has been an anarchist position as long as anarchism has been
   called anarchism. Thus we find Proudhon arguing in 1840 that "the land
   is indispensable to our existence" and "consequently a common thing,
   consequently insusceptible of appropriation" and that "all accumulated
   capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive proprietor."
   This means "the farmer does not appropriate the field which he sows"
   and "all capital . . . being the result of collective labour" is
   "collective property." Without this there is inequality and a
   restriction of freedom as "the working-man holds his labour by the
   condescension and necessities of the master and proprietor." The
   "civilised labourer who bakes a loaf that he may eat a slice of bread .
   . . is not free. His employer . . . is his enemy." In fact, "neither a
   commercial, nor an industrial, nor an agricultural association can be
   conceived of in the absence of equality." The aim was a society of
   "possessors without masters" rather than wage-labourers and tenants
   "controlled by proprietors." Within any economic association there
   would be democracy, with "leaders, instructors, superintendents" and so
   forth being "chosen from the labourers by the labourers themselves, and
   must fulfil the conditions of eligibility. It is the same with all
   public functions, whether of administration or instruction." [What is
   Property?, p. 107, p. 130, p. 153, p. 128, p. 142, p. 227, p. 167 and
   p. 137]

   This meant "democratically organised workers associations" and "[u]nder
   the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the
   instruments of labour, so cannot become a cause of inequality."
   [Proudhon, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1., p. 62] Thus workplaces "are
   the common and undivided property of all those who take part therein"
   rather than "companies of stockholders who plunder the bodies and souls
   of the wage workers." This meant free access, with "every individual
   employed in the association" having "an undivided share in the property
   of the company" and has "a right to fill any position" as "all
   positions are elective, and the by-laws subject to the approval of the
   members." Each member "shall participate in the gains and in the losses
   of the company, in proportion to his [or her] services." [Proudhon,
   General Idea of the Revolution, p. 219 and p. 222] Proudhon's idea of
   free credit from a People's Bank, it should be noted, is another
   example of free access, of socialisation. Needless to say, anarchists
   like Bakunin and Kropotkin based their arguments for socialisation on
   this vision of self-managed workplaces and free access to the means of
   life. For Bakunin, for example, "the land, the instruments of work and
   all other capital may become the collective property of the whole of
   society and be utilised only by the workers, on other words, by the
   agricultural and industrial associations." [Michael Bakunin: Selected
   Writings, p. 174]

   So the means of production are socialised in the mutualism,
   collectivism and communism and all rest on the same principle of equal
   access. So when someone joins an existing workers association they
   become full members of the co-operative, with the same rights and
   duties as existing members. In other words, they participate in the
   decisions on a basis of one person, one vote. How the products of that
   association are distributed vary in different types of anarchism, but
   the associations that create them are rooted in the free association of
   equals. In contrast, a capitalist society places the owner in the
   dominant position and new members of the workforce are employees and so
   subordinate members of an organisation which they have no say in (see
   [30]section B.1).

   Socialisation would mean that workplaces would become "little republics
   of workingmen." [Proudhon, quoted by Dorothy W. Douglas, "Proudhon: A
   Prophet of 1848: Part II", pp. 35-59, The American Journal of
   Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 1, p. 45] As economist David Ellerman explains,
   the democratic workplace "is a social community, a community of work
   rather than a community residence. It is a republic, or res publica of
   the workplace. The ultimate governance rights are assigned as personal
   rights . . . to the people who work in the firm . . . This analysis
   shows how a firm can be socialised and yet remain 'private' in the
   sense of not being government-owned." As noted in [31]section I.3.1,
   this means the end of the labour market as there would be free access
   to workplaces and so workers would not be wage-labourers employed by
   bosses. Instead, there would be a people seeking associations to join
   and associations seeking new associates to work with. "Instead of
   abolishing the employment relation," Ellerman argues, "state socialism
   nationalised it . . . Only the democratic firm -- where the workers are
   jointly self-employed -- is a genuine alternatives to private or public
   employment." [The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 76 and p. 209]

   So libertarian socialism is based on decentralised decision making
   within the framework of socially-owned but independently-run and
   worker-self-managed syndicates. The importance of socialisation should
   not be downplayed. This is because the self-management of work is not
   sufficient in and of itself to ensure an anarchist society. Under
   feudalism, the peasants managed their own labour but such a regime was
   hardly libertarian for, at a minimum, the peasants paid the landlord
   rent. An industrial equivalent can be imagined, where workers hire
   workplaces and land from capitalists and landlords. As left-wing
   economist Geoffrey M. Hodgson suggests:

     "Assume that the workers are self-employed but do not own all the
     means of production. In this case there still may be powerful owners
     of factories, offices and machines . . . the owners of the means of
     production would still receive an income, emanating from that
     ownership. In bargaining with these owners, the workers would be
     required to concede the claim of these owners to an income, as they
     would be unable to produce without making use of the means of
     production owned by others. Hence the workers would still be
     deprived of . . . 'surplus value'. Profits would still derive from
     ownership of the means of production." [Economics and Utopia, p.
     168]

   This would not be (libertarian) socialism (as workers would still be
   exploited) nor would it be capitalism (as there is no wage labour as
   such, although there would be a proletariat). Thus genuine anarchism
   requires socialisation of the means of life, which ensures free access
   (no usury). In other words, self-management (while an essential part of
   anarchism) is not sufficient to make a society anarchistic. Without
   socialism (free access to the means of life) it would be yet another
   class system and rooted in exploitation. To eliminate all exploitation,
   social anarchists propose that productive assets such as workplaces and
   land be owned by society as a whole and run by syndicates and
   self-employed individuals. Thus Kropotkin: "Free workers, on free land,
   with free machinery, and freely using all the powers given to man by
   science." [Act for Yourselves, p. 102]

   This vision of socialisation, of free access, also applies to housing.
   Proudhon, for example, suggested that payments of rent in housing under
   capitalism would be "carried over to the account of the purchase of the
   property" and once paid for the house "shall pass under the control of
   the town administration . . . in the name of all the tenants, and shall
   guarantee them all a domicile, in perpetuity, at the cost of the
   building." Rented farm land would be the same and would, once paid for,
   "revert immediately to the town, which shall take the place of the
   former proprietor." Provision "shall be made for the supervision of the
   towns, for the installation of cultivators, and for the fixing of the
   boundaries of possessions." [General Idea of the Revolution, p. 194 and
   p. 199] Kropotkin had a similar end in mind, namely "the abolition of
   rent", but by different means, namely by "the expropriation of houses"
   during a social revolution. This would be "the communalising of houses
   and the right of each family to a decent dwelling." [The Conquest of
   Bread, p. 91 and p. 95]

   It is important to note here that while anarchists tend to stress
   communes (see [32]section I.5) this does not imply communal living in
   the sense of one-big family. As Kropotkin, for example, was at pains to
   stress such continual communal living is "repugnant to millions of
   human beings. The most reserved man [and woman] certainly feels the
   necessity of meeting his [or her] fellows for the pursue of common work
   . . . But it is not so for the hours of leisure, reserved for rest and
   intimacy." Communal living in the sense of a human bee-hive "can please
   some, and even all at a certain period of their life, but the great
   mass prefers family life (family life of the future, be it understood).
   They prefer isolated apartments." A community living together under one
   roof "would be hateful, were it the general rule. Isolation,
   alternating with time spent in society, is the normal desire of human
   nature." [Op. Cit., pp. 123-4] Thus the aim is "Communism, but not the
   monastic or barrack-room Communism formerly advocated [by state
   socialists], but the free Communism which places the products reaped or
   manufactured at the disposal of all, leaving to each the liberty to
   consume them as he pleases in his [or her] own home." [The Place of
   Anarchism in the Evolution of Socialist Thought, p. 7] Needless to say,
   each household, like each workplace, would be under the control of its
   users and socialisation exists to ensure that remains the case (i.e.,
   that people cannot become tenants/subjects of landlords).

   See [33]section I.6 for a discussion of how socialisation and free
   access could work.

   Beyond this basic vision of self-management and socialisation, the
   schools of anarchism vary. Mutualism eliminates wage labour and unites
   workers with the means of production they use. Such a system is
   socialist as it is based on self-management and workers'
   control/ownership of the means of production. However, other social
   anarchists argue that such a system is little more than
   "petit-bourgeois co-operativism" in which the worker-owners of the
   co-operatives compete in the marketplace with other co-operatives for
   customers, profits, raw materials, etc. -- a situation that could
   result in many of the same problems that arise under capitalism or even
   a return to capitalism (see [34]section I.1.3). Some Mutualists
   recognise this danger. Proudhon, as discussed in [35]section I.3.5,
   advocated an agro-industrial federation to combat the effects of market
   forces in generating inequality and wage labour. In addition,
   supporters of mutualism can point to the fact that existing
   co-operatives rarely fire their members and are far more egalitarian in
   nature than corresponding capitalist firms. This they argue will ensure
   that mutualism will remain socialist, with easy credit available to
   those who are made unemployed to start their own co-operatives again.

   In contrast, within anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism society
   as a whole owns the means of life, which allows for the elimination of
   both competition for survival and the tendency for workers to develop a
   proprietary interest the enterprises in which they work. As Kropotkin
   argued, "[t]here is no reason why the factory . . . should not belong
   to the community . . . It is evident that now, under the capitalist
   system, the factory is the curse of the village, as it comes to
   overwork children and to make paupers of its male inhabitants; and it
   is quite natural that it should be opposed by all means by the workers
   . . . But under a more rational social organisation, the factory would
   find no such obstacles; it would be a boon to the village." Needless to
   say, such a workplace would be based on workers' self-management, as
   "the workers . . . ought to be the real managers of industries."
   [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 152 and p. 157] This
   "socially organised industrial production" (to use Kropotkin's term)
   would ensure a decent standard of living without the problems
   associated with a market, even a non-capitalist one.

   In other words, the economy is communalised, with land and the means of
   production being turned into common "property". The community
   determines the social and ecological framework for production while the
   workforce makes the day-to-day decisions about what to produce and how
   to do it. This is because a system based purely on workplace assemblies
   effectively disenfranchises those individuals who do not work but live
   with the effects of production (e.g., ecological disruption). In Murray
   Bookchin's words, the aim would be to advance "a holistic approach to
   an ecologically oriented economy" with key policy decisions "made by
   citizens in face-to-face assemblies -- as citizens, not simply as
   workers, farmers, or professionals . . . As citizens, they would
   function in such assemblies by their highest level -- their human level
   -- rather than as socially ghettoised beings. They would express their
   general human interests, not their particular status interests." These
   communalised economies would join with others "into a regional
   confederal system. Land, factories, and workshops would be controlled
   by the popular assemblies of free communities, not by a nation-state or
   by worker-producers who might very well develop a proprietary interest
   in them." [Remaking Society, p. 194]

   An important difference between workplace and community assemblies is
   that the former can be narrow in focus while the latter can give a
   hearing to solutions that bring out the common ground of people as
   people rather than as workers in a specific workplace or industry. This
   would be in the context of communal participation, through face-to-face
   voting of the whole community in local neighbourhood and confederal
   assemblies, which will be linked together through voluntary
   federations. It does not mean that the state owns the means of
   production, as under Marxism-Leninism or social democracy, because
   there is no state under libertarian socialism (for more on community
   assemblies, see [36]section I.5).

   This means that when a workplace is communalised workers'
   self-management is placed within the broader context of the community,
   becoming an aspect of community control. This does not mean that
   workers' do not control what they do or how they do it. Rather, it
   means that the framework within which they make their decisions is
   determined by the community. For example, the local community may
   decide that production should maximise recycling and minimise
   pollution, and workers informed of this decision make investment and
   production decisions accordingly. In addition, consumer groups and
   co-operatives may be given a voice in the confederal congresses of
   syndicates or even in the individual workplaces (although it would be
   up to local communities to decide whether this would be practical or
   not). In these ways, consumers could have a say in the administration
   of production and the type and quality of the product, adding their
   voice and interests in the creation as well as the consumption of a
   product.

   Given the general principle of social ownership and the absence of a
   state, there is considerable leeway regarding the specific forms that
   collectivisation might take -- for example, in regard to methods of
   distribution, the use or non-use of money, etc. -- as can be seen by
   the different systems worked out in various areas of Spain during the
   Revolution of 1936-39. Nevertheless, freedom is undermined when some
   communities are poor while others are wealthy. Therefore the method of
   surplus distribution must insure that all communities have an adequate
   share of pooled revenues and resources held at higher levels of
   confederation as well as guaranteed minimum levels of public services
   and provisions to meet basic human needs. That is why anarchists have
   supported the need for syndicates and communities to federate (see
   [37]next section)

   Finally, one key area of disagreement between anarchist schools is how
   far socialisation should go. Mutualists think that it should only
   include the means of production while communist-anarchists argue that
   socialisation, to be consistent, must embrace what is produced as well
   as what produced it. Collectivist-anarchists tend to agree with
   mutualists on this, although many think that, over time, the economy
   would evolve into communism as the legacies of capitalism and scarcity
   are overcome. Proudhon spoke for the mutualists:

     "This, then, is the first point settled: property in product, if we
     grant so much, does not carry with it property in the means of
     production; that seems to me to need no further demonstration . . .
     all . . . are proprietors of their products -- not one is proprietor
     of the means of production. The right to product is exclusive -- jus
     in re; the right to means is common -- jus ad rem." [What is
     Property?, pp. 120-1]

   For libertarian communists, socialisation should be extended to the
   products of labour as well. This means that as well as having free
   access to the means of production, people would also have free access
   to the goods and services produced by them. Again, this does not imply
   people having to share the possessions they use. Rather it means that
   instead of having to buy the goods in question they are distributed
   freely, according to need. To maintain socialisation of the means of
   product but not in goods means basing society "on two absolutely
   opposed principles, two principles that contradict one another
   continually." [Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, p. 163] The need is to
   go beyond the abolition of wage labour into the abolition of money (the
   wages system). This is because any attempt at measuring a person's
   contribution to society will be flawed and, more importantly, people
   "differ from one another by the amount of their needs. There is the
   young unmarried woman and the mother of a family of five or six
   children. For the employer of our days there is no consideration of the
   needs of" each and "the labour cheque . . . acts in the same way."
   [Kropotkin, Act For Yourselves, pp. 108-9]

   Regardless of precisely which mode of distribution specific
   individuals, workplaces, communes or areas picks, socialisation would
   be underlying all. Free access to the means of production will ensure
   free individuals, including the freedom to experiment with different
   anarchistic economic systems.

I.3.4 What relations would exist between individual syndicates?

   Just as individuals associate together to work on and overcome common
   problems, so would syndicates. Few, if any, workplaces are totally
   independent of others. They require raw materials as inputs and
   consumers for their products. Therefore there will be links between
   different syndicates. These links are twofold: firstly, free agreements
   between individual syndicates; secondly, confederations of syndicates
   (within branches of industry and regionally).

   Combined with this desire for free co-operation is a desire to end
   centralised systems. The opposition to centralisation is often framed
   in a distinctly false manner. This can be seen when Alex Nove, a
   leading market socialist, argued that "there are horizontal links
   (market), there are vertical links (hierarchy). What other dimension is
   there?" [The Economics of Feasible Socialism, p. 226] In other words,
   to oppose central planning means to embrace the market. This is not
   true: horizontal links need not be market based any more than vertical
   links need be hierarchical. An anarchist society must be based
   essentially on horizontal links between individuals and associations,
   freely co-operating together as they (not a central body) sees fit.
   This co-operation will be source of many links in an anarchist economy.
   When a group of individuals or associations meet together and discuss
   common interests and make common decisions they will be bound by their
   own decisions. This is radically different from a central body giving
   out orders because those affected will determine the content of these
   decisions. In other words, instead of decisions being handed down from
   the top, they will be created from the bottom up.

   Let us consider free agreement. Anarchists recognise the importance of
   letting people organise their own lives. This means that they reject
   central planning and instead urge direct links between workers'
   associations. In the words of Kropotkin, "[f]ree workers would require
   a free organisation, and this cannot have any other basis than free
   agreement and free co-operation, without sacrificing the autonomy of
   the individual." Those directly involved in production (and in
   consumption) know their needs far better than any bureaucrat. Thus
   voluntary agreement is the basis of a free economy, such agreements
   being "entered by free consent, as a free choice between different
   courses equally open to each of the agreeing parties." [Anarchism, p.
   52 and p. 69] Without the concentration of wealth and power associated
   with capitalism, free agreement will become real and no longer a mask
   for hierarchy.

   The anarchist economy "starts from below, not from above. Like an
   organism, this free society grows into being from the simple unit up to
   the complex structure. The need for . . . the individual struggle for
   life" is "sufficient to set the whole complex social machinery in
   motion. Society is the result of the individual struggle for existence;
   it is not, as many suppose, opposed to it." So anarchists think that
   "[i]n the same way that each free individual has associated with his
   brothers [and sisters!] to produce . . . all that was necessary for
   life, driven by no other force than his [or her] desire for the full
   enjoyment of life, so each institution is free and self-contained, and
   co-operates and enters into agreements with others because by so doing
   it extends its own possibilities." This suggests a decentralised
   economy -- even more decentralised than capitalism (which is
   decentralised only in capitalist mythology, as shown by big business
   and transnational corporations, for example) -- one "growing ever more
   closely bound together and interwoven by free and mutual agreements."
   [George Barrett, The Anarchist Revolution, p. 18]

   An anarchist economy would be based on spontaneous order as workers
   practised mutual aid and free association. For communist anarchists,
   this would take the form of "free exchange without the medium of money
   and without profit, on the basis of requirement and the supply at
   hand." [Alexander Berkman, What is Anarchism?, p. 217] "Anarchists",
   summarised Rocker, "desire a federation of free communities which shall
   be bound to one another by their common economic and social interest
   and shall arrange their affairs by mutual agreement and free contract."
   [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 1] An example of one such agreement would be
   orders for products and services:

     "This factory of ours is, then, to the fullest extent consistent
     with the character of its service, a self-governing unit, managing
     its own productive operations, and free to experiment to the heart's
     content in new methods, to develop new styles and products. . . This
     autonomy of the factory is the safeguard. . . against the dead level
     of mediocrity, the more than adequate substitute for the variety
     which the competitive motive was once supposed to stimulate, the
     guarantee of liveliness, and of individual work and workmanship."
     [G.D.H. Cole, Guild Socialism Restated, p. 59]

   This means that free agreement will ensure that customers would be able
   to choose their own suppliers, meaning that production units would know
   whether they were producing what their customers wanted, when they
   wanted it (i.e., whether they were meeting individual and social
   needs). If they were not, customers would go elsewhere, to other
   production units within the same branch of production. We should stress
   that in addition to this negative check (i.e. "exit" by consumers) it
   is likely, via consumer groups and co-operatives as well as communes,
   that workplaces will be subject to positive checks on what they
   produced. Consumer groups, by formulating and communicating needs to
   producer groups, will have a key role in ensuring the quality of
   production and goods and that it satisfies their needs (see [38]section
   I.4.7 for more details of this).

   These direct horizontal links between syndicates are essential to
   ensure that goods are produced which meet the needs of those who
   requested them. Without specific syndicates requesting specific goods
   at specific times to meet specific requirements, an economy will not
   meet people's needs. A central plan, for example, which states that 1
   million tonnes of steel or 25 million shirts need to be produced in a
   year says nothing about what specifically needs to be produced and
   when, which depends on how it will be used and the needs of those using
   it. As Malatesta argued, "it would be an absurd waste of energy to
   produce blindly for all possible needs, rather than calculating the
   actual needs and organising to satisfy them with as little effort as
   possible . . . the solution lies in accord between people and in the
   agreements . . . that will come about" between them. [At the Caf, pp.
   62-3] Hence the pressing need for the classic anarchist ideas on free
   association, free agreement and mutual aid! These direct links between
   producer and consumer can communicate the information required to
   produce the right thing at the right time! As Kropotkin argued (based
   on his firsthand experience of state capitalism in Russia under Lenin):

     "production and exchange represent an undertaking so complicated
     that the plans of the state socialists . . . would prove to be
     absolutely ineffective as soon as they were applied to life. No
     government would be able to organise production if the workers
     themselves through their unions did not do it in each branch of
     industry; for in all production there arise daily thousands of
     difficulties which no government can solve or foresee. It is
     certainly impossible to foresee everything. Only the efforts of
     thousands of intelligences working on the problems can co-operate in
     the development of a new social system and find the best solutions
     for the thousands of local needs." [Anarchism, pp. 76-77]

   This brings us to the second form of relationships between syndicates,
   namely confederations of syndicates in the same industry or
   geographical area. It should be noted that inter-workplace federations
   are not limited to collectivist, syndicalist and communist anarchists.
   The idea of federations of syndicates goes back to Proudhon's
   agro-industrial federation, first raised during the 1848 revolution and
   named as such in his 1863 book, The Principle of Federation. The French
   mutualist suggested an "agro-industrial federation" as the structural
   support organisation for his system of self-managed co-operatives.
   These confederations of syndicates, are necessary to aid communication
   between workplaces. No syndicate exists in isolation, and so there is a
   real need for a means by which syndicates can meet together to discuss
   common interests and act on them. Thus confederations are complementary
   to free agreement and also reflect anarchist ideas of free association
   and decentralised organisation as well as concern for practical needs:

     "Anarchists are strenuously opposed to the authoritarian, centralist
     spirit . . . So they picture a future social life in the basis of
     federalism, from the individual to the municipality, to the commune,
     to the region, to the nation, to the international, on the basis of
     solidarity and free agreement. And it is natural that this ideal
     should be reflected also in the organisation of production, giving
     preference as far as possible, to a decentralised sort of
     organisation; but this does not take the form of an absolute rule to
     be applied in every instance. A libertarian order would be in itself
     . . . rule out the possibility of imposing such a unilateral
     solution." [Luigi Fabbri, "Anarchy and 'Scientific Communism", pp.
     13-49, The Poverty of Statism, Albert Meltzer (ed.), p. 23]

   A confederation of syndicates (called a "guild" by some libertarian
   socialists, or "industrial union" by others) works on two levels:
   within an industry and across industries. The basic operating principle
   of these confederations is the same as that of the syndicate itself --
   voluntary co-operation between equals in order to meet common needs. In
   other words, each syndicate in the confederation is linked by
   horizontal agreements with the others, and none owe any obligations to
   a separate entity above the group (see [39]section A.2.11 for more on
   the nature of anarchist confederation). As Herbert Read summarised:

     "The general principle is clear: each industry forms itself into a
     federation of self-governing collectives; the control of each
     industry is wholly in the hands of the workers in that industry, and
     these collectives administer the whole economic life of the
     country." [Anarchy and Order, p. 49]

   Kropotkin's comments on federalism between communes indicate this (a
   syndicate can be considered as a producers' commune). "The Commune of
   tomorrow," he argued "will know that it cannot admit any higher
   authority; above it there can only be the interests of the Federation,
   freely accepted by itself as well as other communes." So federalism
   need not conflict with autonomy, as each member would have extensive
   freedom of action within its boundaries and so each "Commune will be
   absolutely free to adopt all the institutions it wishes and to make all
   the reforms and revolutions it finds necessary." [Words of a Rebel, p.
   83] Moreover, these federations would be diverse and functional.
   Economic federation would a produce a complex inter-networking between
   associations and federations:

     "Our needs are in fact so various, and they emerge with such
     rapidity, that soon a single federation will not be sufficient to
     satisfy them all. The Commune will then feel the need to contract
     other alliances, to enter into other federations. Belonging to one
     group for the acquisition of food supplies, it will have to join a
     second group to obtain other goods, such as metals, and then a third
     and a fourth group for textiles and works of art." [Op. Cit., p. 87]

   Therefore, a confederation of syndicates would be adaptive to its
   members needs. As Tom Brown argued, the "syndicalist mode of
   organisation is extremely elastic, therein is its chief strength, and
   the regional confederations can be formed, modified, added to or
   reformed according to local conditions and changing circumstances."
   [Syndicalism, p. 58]

   As would be imagined, these confederations are voluntary associations
   and "[j]ust as factory autonomy is vital in order to keep the Guild
   system alive and vigorous, the existence of varying democratic types of
   factories in independence of the National Guilds may also be a means of
   valuable experiment and fruitful initiative of individual minds. In
   insistently refusing to carry their theory to its last 'logical'
   conclusion, the Guildsmen [and anarchists] are true to their love of
   freedom and varied social enterprise." [G.D.H. Cole, Op. Cit., p. 65]
   This, it must be stressed does not mean centralised control from the
   top:

     "But when we say that ownership of the tools of production,
     including the factory itself, should revert to the corporation [i.e.
     confederation] we do not mean that the workers in the individual
     workshops will be ruled by any kind of industrial government having
     power to do what it pleases with the tools of production. No, the
     workers in the various factories have not the slightest intention of
     handing over their hard-won control . . . to a superior power . . .
     What they will do is . . . to guarantee reciprocal use of their
     tools of production and accord their fellow workers in other
     factories the right to share their facilities, receiving in exchange
     the same right to share the facilities of the fellow workers with
     whom they have contracted the pact of solidarity." [James Guillaume,
     "On Building the New Social Order", pp. 356-79, Bakunin on
     Anarchism, pp. 363-364]

   So collectivist and communist anarchism, like mutualism, is rooted in
   self-management in the workplace. This implies the ability of workers
   to pick the kinds of productive tasks they want to do. It would not be
   the case of workplaces simply being allocated tasks by some central
   body and expected to fulfil them (a task which, ignoring the real
   issues of bureaucracy and freedom, would be difficult to implement in
   any large and complex economy). Rather, workplaces would have the power
   to select tasks submitted to them by other associations (economic and
   communal) and control how the work required to achieve them was done.
   In this type of economic system, workers' assemblies and councils would
   be the focal point, formulating policies for their individual
   workplaces and deliberating on industry-wide or economy-wide issues
   through general meetings of the whole workforce in which everyone would
   participate in decision making. Voting in the councils would be direct,
   whereas in larger confederal bodies, voting would be carried out by
   temporary, unpaid, mandated, and instantly recallable delegates, who
   would resume their status as ordinary workers as soon as their mandate
   had been carried out.

   Mandated here means that the delegates from workers' assemblies and
   councils to meetings of higher confederal bodies would be instructed,
   at every level of confederation, by the workers who elected them on how
   to deal with any issue. They would be delegates, not representatives,
   and so would attend any confederal meeting with specific instructions
   on how to vote on a particular issue. Recallable means that if they do
   not vote according to that mandate they will be replaced and the
   results of the vote nullified. The delegates, in other words, would be
   given imperative mandates (binding instructions) that committed them to
   a framework of policies within which they would have to act, and they
   could be recalled and their decisions revoked at any time for failing
   to carry out the mandates they were given (this support for mandated
   delegates has existed in anarchist theory since at least 1848, when
   Proudhon argued that it was "a consequence of universal suffrage" to
   ensure that "the people . . . do not . . . abjure their sovereignty."
   [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 63]). Because of this right of
   mandating and recalling their delegates, the workers' assemblies at the
   base would be the source of, and final "authority" (so to speak) over,
   policy for all higher levels of confederal co-ordination of the
   economy. Delegates will be ordinary workers rather than paid full-time
   representatives or union leaders, and they will return to their usual
   jobs as soon as the mandate for which they have been elected has been
   carried out. In this way, decision-making power remains with the
   workers' councils and does not become concentrated at the top of a
   bureaucratic hierarchy in an elite class of professional administrators
   or union leaders. What these confederations could do is discussed in
   the [40]next section.

   In summary, a free society "is freely organised, from the bottom to
   top, staring from individuals that unite in associations which slowly
   grow bit by bit into ever more complex federations of associations".
   [Malatesta, At the Cafe, p. 65]

I.3.5 What would confederations of syndicates do?

   Voluntary confederation among syndicates is considered necessary by
   social anarchists for numerous reasons but mostly in order to decide on
   the policies governing relations between syndicates and to co-ordinate
   their activities. This could vary from agreeing technical standards, to
   producing guidelines and policies on specific issues, to agreeing major
   investment decisions or prioritising certain large-scale economic
   projects or areas of research. In addition, they would be the means by
   which disputes could be solved and any tendencies back towards
   capitalism or some other class society identified and acted upon.

   This can be seen from Proudhon, who was the first to suggest the need
   for such federations. "All my economic ideas developed over the last
   twenty-five years," he stated, "can be defined in three words:
   Agro-industrial federation" This was required because "[h]owever
   impeccable in its basic logic the federal principle may be . . . it
   will not survive if economic factors tend persistently to dissolve it.
   In other words, political right requires to be buttressed by economic
   right". A free society could not survive if "capital and commerce"
   existed, as it would be "divided into two classes -- one of landlords,
   capitalists, and entrepreneurs, the other of wage-earning proletarians,
   one rich, the other poor." Thus "in an economic context, confederation
   may be intended to provide reciprocal security in commerce and industry
   . . . The purpose of such specific federal arrangements is to protect
   the citizens . . . from capitalist and financial exploitation, both
   from within and from the outside; in their aggregate they form . . . an
   agro-industrial federation" [The Principle of Federation, p. 74, p. 67
   and p. 70]

   While capitalism results in "interest on capital" and "wage-labour or
   economic servitude, in short inequality of condition", the
   "agro-industrial federation . . . will tend to foster increasing
   equality . . . through mutualism in credit and insurance . . .
   guaranteeing the right to work and to education, and an organisation of
   work which allows each labourer to become a skilled worker and an
   artist, each wage-earner to become his own master." The "industrial
   federation" will apply "on the largest scale" the "principles of
   mutualism" and "economic solidarity". As "industries are sisters", they
   "are parts of the same body" and "one cannot suffer without the others
   sharing in its suffering. They should therefore federate . . . in order
   to guarantee the conditions of common prosperity, upon which no one has
   an exclusive claim." Thus mutualism sees "all industries guaranteeing
   one another mutually" as well as "organising all public services in an
   economical fashion and in hands other than the state's." [Op. Cit., p.
   70, p. 71, p. 72 and p. 70]

   Later anarchists took up, built upon and clarified these ideas of
   economic federation. There are two basic kinds of confederation: an
   industrial one (i.e., a federation of all workplaces of a certain type)
   and a regional one (i.e. a federation of all syndicates within a given
   economic area). Thus there would be a federation for each industry and
   a federation of all syndicates in a geographical area. Both would
   operate at different levels, meaning there would be confederations for
   both industrial and inter-industrial associations at the local and
   regional levels and beyond. The basic aim of this inter-industry and
   cross-industry networking is to ensure that the relevant information is
   spread across the various parts of the economy so that each can
   effectively co-ordinate its plans with the others in a way which
   minimises ecological and social harm. Thus there would be a railway
   workers confederation to manage the rail network but the local,
   regional and national depots and stations would send a delegate to meet
   regularly with the other syndicates in the same geographical area to
   discuss general economic issues.

   However, it is essential to remember that each syndicate within the
   confederation is autonomous. The confederations seek to co-ordinate
   activities of joint interest (in particular investment decisions for
   new plant and the rationalisation of existing plant in light of reduced
   demand). They do not determine what work a syndicate does or how they
   do it:

     "With the factory thus largely conducting its own concerns, the
     duties of the larger Guild organisations [i.e. confederations] would
     be mainly those of co-ordination, or regulation, and of representing
     the Guild in its external relations. They would, where it was
     necessary, co-ordinate the production of various factories, so as to
     make supply coincide with demand. . . they would organise research .
     . . This large Guild organisation. . . must be based directly on the
     various factories included in the Guild." [Cole, Guild Socialism
     Restated, pp. 59-60]

   So it is important to note that the lowest units of confederation --
   the workers' assemblies -- will control the higher levels, through
   their power to elect mandated and recallable delegates to meetings of
   higher confederal units. It would be fair to make the assumption that
   the "higher" up the federation a decision is made, the more general it
   will be. Due to the complexity of life it would be difficult for
   federations which cover wide areas to plan large-scale projects in any
   detail and so would be, in practice, more forums for agreeing
   guidelines and priorities than planning actual specific projects or
   economies. As Russian anarcho-syndicalist G.P. Maximov put it, the aim
   "was to co-ordinate all activity, all local interest, to create a
   centre but not a centre of decrees and ordinances but a centre of
   regulation, of guidance -- and only through such a centre to organise
   the industrial life of the country." [quoted by M. Brinton, For
   Workers' Power, p. 330]

   So this is a decentralised system, as the workers' assemblies and
   councils at the base having the final say on all policy decisions,
   being able to revoke policies made by those with delegated
   decision-making power and to recall those who made them:

     "When it comes to the material and technical method of production,
     anarchists have no preconceived solutions or absolute prescriptions,
     and bow to what experience and conditions in a free society
     recommend and prescribe. What matters is that, whatever the type of
     production adopted, it should be the free choice of the producers
     themselves, and cannot possibly be imposed, any more than any form
     is possible of exploitations of another's labour. . . Anarchists do
     not a priori exclude any practical solution and likewise concede
     that there may be a number of different solutions at different
     times." [Luigi Fabbri, "Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism", pp.
     13-49, The Poverty of Statism, Albert Meltzer (ed.), p. 22]

   Confederations would exist for specific reasons. Mutualists, as can be
   seen from Proudhon, are aware of the dangers associated with even a
   self-managed, socialistic market and create support structures to
   defend workers' self-management. Moreover, it is likely that industrial
   syndicates would be linked to mutual banks (a credit syndicate). Such
   syndicates would exist to provide interest-free credit for
   self-management, new syndicate expansion and so on. And if the
   experience of capitalism is anything to go by, mutual banks will also
   reduce the business cycle as "[c]ountries like Japan and Germany that
   are usually classifies as bank-centred -- because banks provide more
   outside finance than markets, and because more firms have long-term
   relationships with their banks -- show greater growth in and stability
   of investment over time than the market-centred ones, like the US and
   Britain . . . Further, studies comparing German and Japanese firms with
   tight bank ties to those without them also show that firms with bank
   ties exhibit greater stability in investment over the business cycle."
   [Doug Henwood, Wall Street, pp. 174-5]

   One argument against co-operatives is that they do not allow the
   diversification of risk (all the worker's eggs are on one basket).
   Ignoring the obvious point that most workers today do not have shares
   and are dependent on their job to survive, this objection can be
   addressed by means of "the horizontal association or grouping of
   enterprises to pool their business risk. The Mondragon co-operatives
   are associated together in a number of regional groups that pool their
   profits in varying degrees. Instead of a worker diversifying his or her
   capital in six companies, six companies partially pool their profits in
   a group or federation and accomplish the same risk-reduction purpose
   without transferable equity capital." Thus "risk-pooling in federations
   of co-operatives" ensure that "transferable equity capital is not
   necessary to obtain risk diversification in the flow of annual worker
   income." [David Ellerman, The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 104]
   Moreover, as the example of many isolated co-operatives under
   capitalism have shown, support networks are essential for co-operatives
   to survive. It is no co-incidence that the Mondragon co-operative
   complex in the Basque region of Spain has a credit union and mutual
   support networks between its co-operatives and is by far the most
   successful co-operative system in the world. The "agro-industrial
   federation" exists precisely for these reasons.

   Under collectivist and communist anarchism, the federations would have
   addition tasks. There are two key roles. Firstly, the sharing and
   co-ordination of information produced by the syndicates and, secondly,
   determining the response to the changes in production and consumption
   indicated by this information.

   Confederations (negotiated-co-ordination bodies) would be responsible
   for clearly defined branches of production, and in general, production
   units would operate in only one branch of production. These
   confederations would have direct links to other confederations and the
   relevant communal confederations, which supply the syndicates with
   guidelines for decision making (see [41]section I.4.4) and ensure that
   common problems can be highlighted and discussed. These confederations
   exist to ensure that information is spread between workplaces and to
   ensure that the industry responds to changes in social demand. In other
   words, these confederations exist to co-ordinate major new investment
   decisions (i.e. if demand exceeds supply) and to determine how to
   respond if there is excess capacity (i.e. if supply exceeds demand).

   It should be pointed out that these confederated investment decisions
   will exist along with the investments associated with the creation of
   new syndicates, plus internal syndicate investment decisions. We are
   not suggesting that every investment decision is to be made by the
   confederations. (This would be particularly impossible for new
   industries, for which a confederation would not exist!) Therefore, in
   addition to co-ordinated production units, an anarchist society would
   see numerous small-scale, local activities which would ensure
   creativity, diversity, and flexibility. Only after these activities had
   spread across society would confederal co-ordination become necessary.
   So while production will be based on autonomous networking, the
   investment response to consumer actions would, to some degree, be
   co-ordinated by a confederation of syndicates in that branch of
   production. By such means, the confederation can ensure that resources
   are not wasted by individual syndicates over-producing goods or
   over-investing in response to changes in production. By communicating
   across workplaces, people can overcome the barriers to co-ordinating
   their plans which one finds in market systems (see [42]section C.7.2)
   and so avoid the economic and social disruptions associated with them.

   Thus, major investment decisions would be made at congresses and
   plenums of the industry's syndicates, by a process of horizontal,
   negotiated co-ordination. Major investment decisions are co-ordinated
   at an appropriate level, with each unit in the confederation being
   autonomous, deciding what to do with its own productive capacity in
   order to meet social demand. Thus we have self-governing production
   units co-ordinated by confederations (horizontal negotiation), which
   ensures local initiative (a vital source of flexibility, creativity,
   and diversity) and a rational response to changes in social demand. As
   links between syndicates are non-hierarchical, each syndicate remains
   self-governing. This ensures decentralisation of power and direct
   control, initiative, and experimentation by those involved in doing the
   work.

   It should be noted that during the Spanish Revolution successfully
   federated in different ways. Gaston Leval noted that these forms of
   confederation did not harm the libertarian nature of self-management:

     "Everything was controlled by the syndicates. But it must not
     therefore be assumed that everything was decided by a few higher
     bureaucratic committees without consulting the rank and file members
     of the union. Here libertarian democracy was practised. As in the
     C.N.T. there was a reciprocal double structure; from the grass roots
     at the base . . . upwards, and in the other direction a reciprocal
     influence from the federation of these same local units at all
     levels downwards, from the source back to the source." [The
     Anarchist Collectives, p. 105]

   The exact nature of any confederal responsibilities will vary, although
   we "prefer decentralised management; but ultimately, in practical and
   technical problems, we defer to free experience." [Luigi Fabbri, Op.
   Cit., p. 24] The specific form of organisation will obviously vary as
   required from industry to industry, area to area, but the underlying
   ideas of self-management and free association will be the same.
   Moreover, the "essential thing . . . is that its [the confederation or
   guild] function should be kept down to the minimum possible for each
   industry." [Cole, Op. Cit., p. 61]

   Another important role for inter-syndicate federations is to even-out
   inequalities. After all, each area will not be identical in terms of
   natural resources, quality of land, situation, accessibility, and so
   on. Simply put, social anarchists "believe that because of natural
   differences in fertility, health and location of the soil it would be
   impossible to ensure that every individual enjoyed equal working
   conditions." Under such circumstances, it would be "impossible to
   achieve a state of equality from the beginning" and so "justice and
   equity are, for natural reasons, impossible to achieve . . . and that
   freedom would thus also be unachievable." [Malatesta, The Anarchist
   Revolution, p. 16 and p. 21]

   This was recognised by Proudhon, who saw the need for economic
   federation due to differences in raw materials, quality of land and so
   on, and as such argued that a portion of income from agricultural
   produce be paid into a central fund which would be used to make
   equalisation payments to compensate farmers with less favourably
   situated or less fertile land. As he put it, economic rent "in
   agriculture has no other cause than the inequality in the quality of
   land . . . if anyone has a claim on account of this inequality . . .
   [it is] the other land workers who hold inferior land. That is why in
   our scheme for liquidation [of capitalism] we stipulated that every
   variety of cultivation should pay a proportional contribution, destined
   to accomplish a balancing of returns among farm workers and an
   assurance of products." In addition, "all the towns of the Republic
   shall come to an understanding for equalising among them the quality of
   tracts of land, as well as accidents of culture." [General Idea of the
   Revolution, p. 209 and p. 200]

   By federating together, workers can ensure that "the earth will . . .
   be an economic domain available to everyone, the riches of which will
   be enjoyed by all human beings." [Malatesta, Errico Malatesta: His Life
   and Ideas, p. 93] Local deficiencies of raw materials, in the quality
   of land, and, therefore, supplies would be compensated from outside, by
   the socialisation of production and consumption. This would allow all
   of humanity to share and benefit from economic activity, so ensuring
   that well-being for all is possible.

   Federation would eliminate the possibility of rich and poor collectives
   and syndicates co-existing side by side. As Kropotkin argued, "[c]ommon
   possession of the necessities for production implies the common
   enjoyment of the fruits of common production . . . when everybody,
   contributing for the common well-being to the full extent of his [or
   her] capacities, shall enjoy also from the common stock of society to
   the fullest possible extent of his [or her] needs." [Anarchism, p. 59]
   Hence we find the CNT arguing in its 1936 resolution on libertarian
   communism that "[a]s far as the interchange of produce between communes
   is concerned, the communal councils are to liase with the regional
   federations of communes and with the confederal council of production
   and distribution, applying for whatever they may need and [giving] any
   available surplus stocks." [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the
   Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, p. 107] This clearly followed Kropotkin's
   comments that the "socialising of production, consumption, and
   exchange" would be based on workplaces "belong[ing] to federated
   Communes." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 136]

   The legacy of capitalism, with its rich and poor areas, its rich and
   poor workplaces, will be a problem any revolution will face. The
   inequalities produced by centuries of class society will take time to
   change. This is one of the tasks of the confederation, to ensure the
   socialisation of both production and consumption so that people are not
   penalised for the accidents of history and that each commune can
   develop itself to an adequate level. In the words of the CNT during the
   Spanish Revolution:

     "Many arguments are used against the idea of socialisation; one of
     these -- the most delightful -- says that by socialising an industry
     we simply take it over and run it with the consequence that we have
     flourishing industries where the workers are privileged, and
     unfortunate industries where the workers get less benefits but have
     to work harder than workers elsewhere . . . There are differences
     between the workers in prosperous industries and those which barely
     survive. . . Such anomalies, which we don't deny exist, are
     attributed to the attempts at socialisation. We firmly assert that
     the opposite is true; such anomalies are the logical result of the
     absence of socialisation.

     "The socialisation which we propose will resolve these problems
     which are used to attack it. Were Catalan industry socialised,
     everything would be organically linked -- industry, agriculture, and
     the trade union organisations, in accordance with the council for
     the economy. They would become normalised, the working day would
     become more equal or what comes to the same thing, the differences
     between workers of different activities would end . . .

     "Socialisation is -- and let its detractors hear it -- the genuine
     authentic organisation of the economy. Undoubtedly the economy has
     to be organised; but not according to the old methods, which are
     precisely those which we are destroying, but in accordance with new
     norms which will make our people become an example to the world
     proletariat." [Solidaridad Obrera, 30 April 1937, p. l2]

   Workers' self-management does not automatically mean that all forms of
   economic domination and exploitation would be eliminated. After all, in
   a market economy firms can accrue super-profits simply because of their
   size or control over a specific technology or resource. Hence
   Proudhon's suggestion that "advocates of mutualism" would "regulate the
   market" to ensure "an honest breakdown of cost prices", fix "after
   amicable discussion of a maximum and minimum profit margin" and "the
   organising of regulating societies." [Selected Writings of
   Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 70] It seems likely that the agro-industrial
   federation would be the body which ensures that. Similarly, the
   federation would be the means by which to air, and deal with,
   suggestions that syndicates are monopolising their resources, i.e.,
   treating them as private property rather than socialised possessions.
   Thus the federation would unite workers "to guarantee the mutual use of
   the tools of production" which are, "by a reciprocal contract", the
   "collective property of the whole." [James Guillaume, "On Building the
   New Social Order", pp. 356-79, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 376]

   The inter-industry confederations help ensure that when the members of
   a syndicate change work to another syndicate in another (or the same)
   branch of industry, they have the same rights as the members of their
   new syndicate. In other words, by being part of the confederation, a
   worker ensures that s/he has the same rights and an equal say in
   whatever workplace is joined. This is essential to ensure that a
   co-operative society remains co-operative, as the system is based on
   the principle of "one person, one vote" by all those involved the work
   process. If specific syndicates are restricting access and so producing
   wage-labour, monopolising resources and so charging monopoly prices,
   the federation would be forum to publicly shame such syndicates and
   organise boycotts of them. Such anti-social activity is unlikely to be
   tolerated by a free people seeking to protect that freedom.

   However, it could again be argued that these confederations are still
   centralised and that workers would still be following orders coming
   from above. This is incorrect, for any decisions concerning an industry
   or plant are under the direct control of those involved. For example,
   the steel industry confederation may decide to rationalise itself at
   one of its congresses. Murray Bookchin sketches the response to this
   situation as follows:

     "[L]et us suppose that a board of highly qualified technicians is
     established [by this congress] to propose changes in the steel
     industry. This board . . . advances proposals to rationalise the
     industry by closing down some plants and expanding the operation of
     others . . . Is this a 'centralised' body or not? The answer is both
     yes and no. Yes, only in the sense that the board is dealing with
     problems that concern the country as a whole; no, because it can
     make no decision that must be executed for the country as a whole.
     The board's plan must be examined by all the workers in the plants
     [that are affected] . . . The board itself has no power to enforce
     'decisions'; it merely makes recommendations. Additionally, its
     personnel are controlled by the plant in which they work and the
     locality in which they live . . . they would have no decision-making
     powers. The adoption, modification or rejection of their plans would
     rest entirely with . . . [those] involved." [Post Scarcity
     Anarchism, p. 180]

   Therefore, confederations would not be in positions of power over the
   individual syndicates. No attempt is made to determine which plants
   produce which steel for which customers in which manner. Thus, the
   confederations of syndicates ensure a decentralised, spontaneous
   economic order without the negative side-effects of capitalism (namely
   power concentrations within firms and in the market, periodic crises,
   etc.).

   As one can imagine, an essential feature of these confederations will
   be the collection and processing of information in order to determine
   how an industry is developing. This does not imply bureaucracy or
   centralised control at the top. Taking the issue of centralisation
   first, the confederation is run by delegate assemblies, meaning that
   any officers elected at a congress only implement the decisions made by
   the delegates of the relevant syndicates. It is in the congresses and
   plenums of the confederation that new investment decisions, for
   example, are made. The key point to remember is that the confederation
   exists purely to co-ordinate joint activity and share information, it
   does not take an interest in how a workplace is run or what orders from
   consumers it fills. (Of course, if a given workplace introduces
   policies which other syndicates disapprove of, it can be expelled). As
   the delegates to these congresses and plenums are mandated and their
   decisions subject to rejection and modification by each productive
   unit, the confederation is not centralised.

   As far as bureaucracy goes, the collecting and processing of
   information does necessitate an administrative staff to do the work.
   However, this problem affects capitalist firms as well; and since
   syndicates are based on bottom-up decision making, its clear that,
   unlike a centralised capitalist corporation, administration would be
   smaller. In fact, it is likely that a fixed administration staff for
   the confederation would not exist in the first place! At the regular
   congresses, a particular syndicate may be selected to do the
   confederation's information processing, with this job being rotated
   regularly around different syndicates. In this way, a specific
   administrative body and equipment can be avoided and the task of
   collating information placed directly in the hands of ordinary workers.
   Further, it prevents the development of a bureaucratic elite by
   ensuring that all participants are versed in information-processing
   procedures.

   Lastly, what information would be collected? That depends on the
   context. Individual syndicates would record inputs and outputs,
   producing summary sheets of information. For example, total energy
   input, in kilowatts and by type, raw material inputs, labour hours
   spent, orders received, orders accepted, output, and so forth. This
   information can be processed into energy use and labour time per
   product (for example), in order to give an idea of how efficient
   production is and how it is changing over time. For confederations, the
   output of individual syndicates can be aggregated and local and other
   averages can be calculated. In addition, changes in demand can be
   identified by this aggregation process and used to identify when
   investment will be needed or plants closed down. In this way the
   chronic slumps and booms of capitalism can be avoided without creating
   a system which is even more centralised than capitalism.

I.3.6 What about competition between syndicates?

   This is a common question, particularly from defenders of capitalism.
   They argue that syndicates will not co-operate together unless forced
   to do so, and will compete against each other for raw materials,
   skilled workers, and so on. The result of this process, it is claimed,
   will be rich and poor syndicates, inequality within society and within
   the workplace, and (possibly) a class of unemployed workers from
   unsuccessful syndicates who are hired by successful ones. In other
   words, they argue that libertarian socialism will need to become
   authoritarian to prevent competition, and that if it does not do so it
   will become capitalist very quickly.

   For individualist anarchists and mutualists, competition is not viewed
   as a problem. They think that competition, based around co-operatives
   and mutual banks, would minimise economic inequality, as the new
   economic structure based around free credit and co-operation would
   eliminate non-labour (i.e. unearned) income such as profit, interest
   and rent and give workers enough bargaining power to eliminate
   exploitation. For these anarchists it is a case of capitalism
   perverting competition and so are not against competition itself. Other
   anarchists think that whatever gains might accrue from competition
   (assuming there are, in fact, any) would be more than offset by its
   negative effects, which are outlined in [43]section I.1.3. It is to
   these anarchists that the question is usually asked.

   Before continuing, we would like to point out that individuals trying
   to improve their lot in life is not against anarchist principles. How
   could it be? "Selfish is not a crime," John Most and Emma Goldman
   noted, "it only becomes a crime when conditions are such as to give an
   individual the opportunity to satisfy his selfishness to the detriment
   of others. In an anarchistic society everyone will seek to satisfy his
   ego" but in order to do so he "will extend his aid to those who will
   aid him, and then selfishness will no more be a curse but a blessing."
   ["Talking about Anarchy", Black Flag, no. 228, p. 28] Thus anarchists
   see co-operation and mutual aid as an expression of "self-interest", in
   that working with people as equals is in our joint benefit. In the
   words of John O'Neill:

     "[F]or it is the institutions themselves that define what counts as
     one's interests. In particular, the market encourages egoism, not
     primarily because it encourages an individual to be
     'self-interested' -- it would be unrealistic not to expect
     individuals to act for the greater part in a 'self-interested'
     manner -- but rather because it defines an individual's interests in
     a particularly narrow fashion, most notably in terms of possession
     of certain material goods. In consequence, where market mechanism
     enter a particular sphere of life, the pursuit of goods outside this
     narrow range of market goods is institutionally defined as an act of
     altruism." [The Market, p. 158]

   As such, anarchists would suggest that we should not confuse
   competition with self-interest and that a co-operative society would
   tend to promote institutions and customs which would ensure that people
   recognised that co-operation between equals maximises individual
   freedom and self-interest far more than individualistic pursuit to
   material wealth at the expense of all other goals. Ultimately, what use
   would it be to gain the world and loose what makes life worth living?

   Of course, such a society would not be based on exactly equal shares of
   everything. Rather, it would mean equal opportunity and free, or equal,
   access to resources (for example, that only ill people use medical
   resources is unproblematic for egalitarians!). So a society with
   unequal distributions of resources is not automatically a non-anarchist
   one. What is against anarchist principles is centralised power,
   oppression, and exploitation, all of which flow from large inequalities
   of income and private property. This is the source of anarchist concern
   about equality -- concern that is not based on some sort of "politics
   of envy." Anarchists oppose inequality because it soon leads to the few
   oppressing the many (a relationship which distorts the individuality
   and liberty of all involved as well as the health and very lives of the
   oppressed).

   Anarchists desire to create a society in which such relationships are
   impossible, believing that the most effective way to do this is by
   empowering all, by creating an egoistic concern for liberty and
   equality among the oppressed, and by developing social organisations
   which encourage self-management. As for individuals' trying to improve
   their lot, anarchists maintain that co-operation is the best means to
   do so, not competition. And there is substantial evidence to support
   this claim (see, for example, Alfie Kohn's No Contest: The Case Against
   Competition and Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Co-operation present
   abundant evidence that co-operation is in our long term interests and
   provides better results than short term competition). This suggests
   that, as Kropotkin argued, mutual aid, not mutual struggle, will be in
   an individual's self-interest and so competition in a free, sane
   society would be minimised and reduced to sports and other individual
   pastimes. As Stirner argued, co-operation is just as egoistic as
   competition (a fact sometimes lost on many due to the obvious ethical
   superiority of co-operation):

     "But should competition some day disappear, because concerted effort
     will have been acknowledged as more beneficial than isolation, then
     will not every single individual inside the associations be equally
     egoistic and out for his own interests?" [No Gods, No Masters, vol.
     1, p. 22]

   Now to the "competition" objection, which we'll begin to answer by
   noting that it ignores a few key points.

   Firstly, the assumption that a libertarian society would "become
   capitalist" in the absence of a state is obviously false. If
   competition did occur between collectives and did lead to massive
   wealth inequalities, then the newly rich would have to create a state
   to protect their private property against the dispossessed. So
   inequality, not equality, leads to the creation of states. It is no
   co-incidence that the anarchic communities that existed for millennia
   were also egalitarian.

   Secondly, as noted in [44]section A.2.5, anarchists do not consider
   "equal" to mean "identical." Therefore, to claim that wage differences
   mean the end of anarchism makes sense only if one thinks that
   "equality" means everyone getting exactly equal shares. As anarchists
   do not hold such an idea, wage differences in an otherwise
   anarchistically organised syndicate do not indicate a lack of equality.
   How the syndicate is run is of far more importance, because the most
   pernicious type of inequality from the anarchist standpoint is
   inequality of power, i.e. unequal influence on political and economic
   decision making.

   Under capitalism, wealth inequality translates into such an inequality
   of power, and vice versa, because wealth can buy private property (and
   state protection of it), which gives owners authority over that
   property and those hired to produce with it; but under libertarian
   socialism, minor or even moderate differences in income among otherwise
   equal workers would not lead to this kind of power inequality, because
   self-management and socialisation severs the link between wealth and
   power. Moreover, when labour becomes free in a society of rebels (and,
   surely, an anarchist society could be nothing but) few would tolerate
   relatively minor income inequalities becoming a source of power.

   Thirdly, anarchists do not pretend that an anarchist society will be
   perfect. Hence there may be periods, particularly just after capitalism
   has been replaced by self-management, when differences in skill, etc.,
   leads to some people exploiting their position and getting more wages,
   better hours and conditions, and so forth. This problem existed in the
   industrial collectives in the Spanish Revolution. As Kropotkin pointed
   out, "[b]ut, when all is said and done, some inequalities, some
   inevitable injustice, undoubtedly will remain. There are individuals in
   our societies whom no great crisis can lift out of the deep mire of
   egoism in which they are sunk. The question, however, is not whether
   there will be injustices or no, but rather how to limit the number of
   them." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 94]

   In other words, these problems will exist, but there are a number of
   things that anarchists can do to minimise their impact. There will be a
   "gestation period" before the birth of an anarchist society, in which
   social struggle, new forms of education and child-rearing, and other
   methods of consciousness-raising increase the number of anarchists and
   decrease the number of authoritarians.

   The most important element in this gestation period is social struggle.
   Such self-activity will have a major impact on those involved in it
   (see [45]section J.2). By direct action and solidarity, those involved
   develop bounds of friendship and support with others, develop new forms
   of ethics and new ideas and ideal. This radicalisation process will
   help to ensure that any differences in education and skill do not
   develop into differences in power in an anarchist society by making
   people less likely to exploit their advantages nor, more importantly,
   for others to tolerate them doing so!

   In addition, education within the anarchist movement should aim, among
   other things, to give its members familiarity with technological skills
   so that they are not dependent on "experts" and can thus increase the
   pool of skilled workers who will be happy working in conditions of
   liberty and equality. This will ensure that differentials between
   workers can be minimised. In the long run, however, popularisation of
   non-authoritarian methods of child-rearing and education (see
   [46]section J.6) are particularly important because, as we suggested in
   [47]section B.1.5, secondary drives such as greed and the desire the
   exercise power over others are products of authoritarian upbringing
   based on punishments and fear. Only if the prevalence of such drives is
   reduced among the general population can we be sure that an anarchist
   revolution will not degenerate into some new form of domination and
   exploitation.

   However, there are other reasons why economic inequality -- say, in
   differences of income levels or working conditions, which may arise
   from competition for "better" workers -- would be far less severe under
   any form of anarchist society than it is under capitalism.

   Firstly, the syndicates would be democratically managed. This would
   result in much smaller wage differentials, because there is no board of
   wealthy directors setting wage levels for their own gain. So without
   hierarchies in the workplace no one would be in a position to
   monopolise the work of others and grow rich as a result:

     "Poverty is the symptom: slavery the disease. The extremes of riches
     and destitution follow inevitably upon the extremes of license and
     bondage. The many are not enslaved because they are poor, they are
     poor because they are enslaved. Yet Socialists have all too often
     fixed their eyes upon the material misery of the poor without
     realising that it rests upon the spiritual degradation of the
     slave." [G.D.H. Cole, Self-Government in Industry, p. 41]

   Empirical evidence supports anarchist claims as co-operatives have a
   far more egalitarian wage structure than capitalist firms. This can be
   seen from the experience of the Mondragon co-operatives, where the wage
   difference between the highest paid and lowest paid worker was 4 to 1.
   This was only increased when they had to compete with large capitalist
   companies, and even then the new ratio of 9 to 1 is far smaller than
   those in capitalist companies (in America the ratio is 200 to 1 and
   beyond!). Thus, even under capitalism, "[t]here is evidence that the
   methods of distribution chosen by worker-controlled or self-managed
   firms are more egalitarian than distribution according to market
   precepts." [Christopher Eaton Gunn, Workers' Self-Management in the
   United States, p. 45] Given that market precepts fail to take into
   account power differences, this is unsurprising. Thus we can predict
   that a fully self-managed economy would be just, if not, more
   egalitarian as differences in power would be eliminated, as would
   unemployment (James K. Galbraith, in his book Created Unequal, has
   presented extensive evidence that unemployment increases inequality, as
   would be expected).

   It is a common myth that managers, executives and so on are paid so
   highly because of their unique abilities. Actually, they are so highly
   paid because they are bureaucrats in command of large hierarchical
   institutions. It is the hierarchical nature of the capitalist firm that
   ensures inequality, not exceptional skills. Even enthusiastic
   supporters of capitalism provide evidence to support this claim. In the
   1940s Peter Drucker, a supporter of capitalism, brushed away the claim
   that corporate organisation brings managers with exceptional ability to
   the top when he noted that "[n]o institution can possibly survive if it
   needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organised in such a
   way as to be able to get along under a leadership of average human
   beings." For Drucker, "the things that really count are not the
   individual members but the relations of command and responsibility
   among them." [Concept of the Corporation, p. 35 and p. 34] Little has
   changed, beyond the power of PR to personalise the bureaucratic
   structures of corporations.

   Secondly, having no means of unearned income (such as rent, interest
   and intellectual property rights), anarchism will reduce income
   differentials substantially.

   Thirdly, management positions would be rotated, ensuring that everyone
   gets experience of the work, thus reducing the artificial scarcity
   created by the division of labour. Also, education would be extensive,
   ensuring that engineers, doctors, and other skilled workers would do
   the work because they enjoyed doing it and not for financial reward.

   Fourthly, we should like to point out that people work for many
   reasons, not just for high wages. Feelings of solidarity, empathy,
   friendship with their fellow workers would also help reduce competition
   between syndicates.

   Of course, the "competition" objection assumes that syndicates and
   members of syndicates will place financial considerations above all
   else. This is not the case, and few individuals are the economic robots
   assumed in capitalist dogma. Indeed, the evidence from co-operatives
   refutes such claims (ignoring, for the moment, the vast evidence of our
   own senses and experiences with real people rather than the insane
   "economic man" of capitalist economic ideology). As noted in
   [48]section I.3.1 neo-classical economic theory, deducing from its
   basic assumptions, argues that members of co-operatives will aim to
   maximise profit per worker and so, perversely, fire their members
   during good times. Reality contradicts these claims. In other words,
   the underlying assumption that people are economic robots cannot be
   maintained -- there is extensive evidence pointing to the fact that
   different forms of social organisation produce different considerations
   which motivate people accordingly.

   So, while recognising that competition could exist, anarchists think
   there are plenty of reasons not to worry about massive economic
   inequality being created, which in turn would re-create the state. The
   apologists for capitalism who put forward this argument forget that the
   pursuit of self-interest is universal, meaning that everyone would be
   interested in maximising his or her liberty, and so would be unlikely
   to allow inequalities to develop which threatened that liberty. It
   would be in the interests of communes and syndicates which to share
   with others instead of charging high prices for them as they may find
   themselves boycotted by others, and so denied the advantages of social
   co-operation. Moreover, they may be subject to such activities
   themselves and so it would wise for them to remember to "treat others
   as you would like them to treat you under similar circumstances." As
   anarchism will never come about unless people desire it and start to
   organise their own lives, it is clear that an anarchist society would
   be inhabited by individuals who followed that ethical principle.

   So it is doubtful that people inspired by anarchist ideas would start
   to charge each other high prices, particularly since the syndicates and
   community assemblies are likely to vote for a wide basis of surplus
   distribution, precisely to avoid this problem and to ensure that
   production will be for use rather than profit. In addition, as other
   communities and syndicates would likely boycott any syndicate or
   commune that was acting in non-co-operative ways, it is likely that
   social pressure would soon result in those willing to exploit others
   rethinking their position. Co-operation does not imply a willingness to
   tolerate those who desire to take advantage of you. In other words,
   neither mutual aid nor anarchist theory implies people are naive
   indiscriminate altruists but rather people who, while willing to work
   with others co-operatively, will act to stop others taking advantage of
   them. Mutual aid, in other words is based on reciprocal relationships.
   If someone or a syndicate does not co-operate but rather seeks to take
   advantage of others, then the others are well within their rights to
   boycott them and otherwise protest against them. A free society is
   based on all people pursuing their self-interest, not just the few.
   This suggests that anarchists reject the assumption that those who lose
   by competition should be altruistic and let competition ruin their
   lives.

   Moreover, given the experience of the neo-liberal period from the 1980s
   onwards (with rising inequality marked by falling growth, lower wage
   growth, rising unemployment and increased economic instability) the
   impact of increased competition and inequality harms the vast majority.
   It is doubtful that people aware of these tendencies (and that, as we
   argued in [49]section F.3, "free exchange" in an unequal society tends
   to increase, not decrease, inequality) would create such a regime.

   Unsurprisingly, examples of anarchism in action show that there is
   working together to reduce the dangers of isolation and competition.
   One thing to remember is that anarchy will not be created "overnight"
   and so potential problems will be worked out over time. Underlying all
   these kinds of objections is the assumption that co-operation will not
   be more beneficial to all involved than competition. However, in terms
   of quality of life, co-operation will soon be seen to be the better
   system, even by the most highly paid workers. There is far more to life
   than the size of one's pay packet, and anarchism exists in order to
   ensure that life is far more than the weekly grind of boring work and
   the few hours of hectic consumption in which people attempt to fill the
   "spiritual hole" created by a way of life which places profits above
   people.

I.3.7 What about people who do not want to join a syndicate?

   In this case, they are free to work alone, by their own labour.
   Anarchists have no desire to force people to join a syndicate. Emma
   Goldman spoke for all anarchists when she stated that "[w]e believe in
   every person living his own life in his own way and not in coercing
   others to follow any one's dictation." [A Documentary History of the
   American Years, vol. 2, p. 324]

   Therefore, the decision to join a syndicate will be a free one, with
   the potential for living outside it guaranteed for non-exploitative and
   non-oppressive individuals and groups. Malatesta stressed this when he
   argued that in an anarchist revolution "what has to be destroyed at
   once . . . is capitalistic property, that is, the fact that a few
   control the natural wealth and the instruments of production and can
   thus oblige others to work for them" but one must have a "right and the
   possibility to live in a different regime, collectivist, mutualist,
   individualist -- as one wishes, always on the condition that there is
   no oppression or exploitation of others." [Errico Malatesta: Life and
   Ideas, p. 102] In other words, different forms of social life will be
   experimented with, depending on what people desire.

   Of course some people ask how anarchists can reconcile individual
   freedom with expropriation of capital. All we can say is that these
   critics subscribe to the idea that one should not interfere with the
   "individual freedom" of those in positions of authority to oppress
   others, and that this premise turns the concept of individual freedom
   on its head, making oppression a "right" and the denial of freedom a
   form of it!

   However, it is a valid question to ask if anarchism would result in
   self-employed people being forced into syndicates as the result of a
   popular movement. The answer is no. This is because the destruction of
   title deeds would not harm the independent worker, whose real title is
   possession and the work done. What anarchists want to eliminate is not
   possession but capitalist property. Thus such workers "may prefer to
   work alone in his own small shop" rather than join an association or a
   federation. [James Guillaume, "On Building the New Social Order", pp.
   356-79, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 362]

   This means that independent producers will still exist within an
   anarchist society, and some workplaces -- perhaps whole areas -- will
   not be part of a confederation. This is natural in a free society, for
   different people have different ideas and ideals. Nor does such
   independent producers imply a contradiction with libertarian socialism,
   for "[w]hat we concerned with is the destruction of the titles of
   proprietors who exploit the labour of others and, above all, of
   expropriating them in fact in order to put . . . all the means of
   production at the disposal of those who do the work." [Malatesta, Op.
   Cit., p. 103] Such freedom to work independently or associate as
   desired does not imply any support for private property (as discussed
   in [50]section I.6.2). Thus any individual in a libertarian socialist
   economy "always has the liberty to isolate himself and work alone,
   without being considered a bad citizen or a suspect." [Proudhon, quoted
   by K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French
   Republican Socialism, p. 145]

   In summary, in a free society people need not join syndicates nor does
   a co-operative need to confederate with others. Given we have discussed
   the issue of freedom of economic arrangements at length in [51]section
   G.2.1 we will leave this discussion here.

I.3.8 Do anarchists seek "small autonomous communities, devoted to small scale
production"?

   No. The idea that anarchism aims for small, self-sufficient, communes
   is a Leninist slander. They misrepresent anarchist ideas on this
   matter, suggesting that anarchists seriously want society based on
   "small autonomous communities, devoted to small scale production." In
   particular, they point to Kropotkin, arguing that he "looked backwards
   for change" and "witnessed such communities among Siberian peasants and
   watchmakers in the Swiss mountains." [Pat Stack, "Anarchy in the UK?",
   Socialist Review, no. 246] Another Leninist, Donny Gluckstein, makes a
   similar assertion about Proudhon wanting a federation of "tiny economic
   units". [The Paris Commune, p. 75]

   While it may be better to cover this issue in [52]section H.2, we
   discuss it here simply because it relates directly to what an anarchist
   society could look like and so it allows us to that more fully.

   So what do anarchists make of the assertion that we aim for "small
   autonomous communities, devoted to small scale production"? Simply put,
   we think it is nonsense (as would be quickly obvious from reading
   anarchist theory). Indeed, it is hard to know where this particular
   anarchist "vision" comes from. As Luigi Fabbri noted, in his reply to
   an identical assertion by the leading Bolshevik Nikolai Bukharin, "[i]t
   would be interesting to learn in what anarchist book, pamphlet or
   programme such an 'ideal' is set out, or even such a hard and fast
   rule!" ["Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism", pp. 13-49, The Poverty of
   Statism, Albert Meltzer (ed.), p. 21]

   If we look at, say, Proudhon, we soon see no such argument for "small
   scale" production. For Proudhon, "[l]arge industry . . . come to us by
   big monopoly and big property: it is necessary in the future to make
   them rise from the [workers] association." [quoted by K. Steven
   Vincent, Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 156]
   In fact, The Frenchman explicitly rejected the position Stack inflicts
   on him by arguing that it "would be to retrograde" and "impossible" to
   wish "the division of labour, with machinery and manufactures, to be
   abandoned, and each family to return to the system of primitive
   indivision, - that is, to each one by himself, each one for himself, in
   the most literal meaning of the words." [System of Economic
   Contradictions, p. 206] As historian K. Steven Vincent correctly
   summarises:

     "On this issue, it is necessary to emphasise that, contrary to the
     general image given in the secondary literature, Proudhon was not
     hostile to large industry. Clearly, he objected to many aspects of
     what these large enterprises had introduced into society. For
     example, Proudhon strenuously opposed the degrading character of . .
     . work which required an individual to repeat one minor function
     continuously. But he was not opposed in principle to large-scale
     production. What he desired was to humanise such production, to
     socialise it so that the worker would not be the mere appendage to a
     machine. Such a humanisation of large industries would result,
     according to Proudhon, from the introduction of strong workers'
     associations. These associations would enable the workers to
     determine jointly by election how the enterprise was to be directed
     and operated on a day-to-day basis." [Op. Cit., p. 156]

   Moreover, Proudhon did not see an anarchist society as one of isolated
   communities or workplaces. Like other anarchists, as we discussed in
   [53]section I.3.4, Proudhon saw a free society's productive activity
   centred around federations of syndicates.

   This vision of a federation of workplaces can also be found in
   Bakunin's writings: "The future organisation of society must proceed
   from the bottom up only, through free association or federations of the
   workers, into their associations to begin with, then into communes,
   regions, nations and, finally, into a great international and universal
   federation." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 176] Like Proudhon,
   Bakunin also explicitly rejected the idea of seeking small-scale
   production, arguing that "if [the workers] tried to divide among
   themselves the capital that exists, they would . . . reduce to a large
   decree its productive power." Therefore the need was for "the
   collective property of capital" to ensure "the emancipation of labour
   and of the workers." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 91] Bakunin, again like
   Proudhon, considered that "[i]ntelligent free labour will necessarily
   be associated labour" as under capitalism the worker "works for others"
   and her labour is "bereft of liberty, leisure and intelligence." Under
   anarchism, "the free productive associations" would become "their own
   masters and the owners of the necessary capital" and "amalgamate among
   themselves" and "sooner or later" will "expand beyond national
   frontiers" and "form one vast economic federation." [Michael Bakunin:
   Selected Writings, pp. 81-3]

   Nor can such a vision be attributed to Kropotkin. While, of course,
   supporting decentralisation of power and decision making as did
   Proudhon and Bakunin, he did not reject the necessity of federations to
   co-ordinate activity. As he put it, the "commune of tomorrow will know
   that it cannot admit any higher authority; above it there can only be
   the interests of the Federation, freely accepted by itself as well as
   the other communes"/ For anarchists the commune "no longer means a
   territorial agglomeration; it is rather a generic name, a synonym for
   the grouping of equals which knows neither frontiers nor walls . . .
   Each group in the Commune will necessarily be drawn towards similar
   groups in other communes; they will come together and the links that
   federate them will be as solid as those that attach them to their
   fellow citizens." [Words of a Rebel, p. 83 and p. 88] Nor did he reject
   industry or machinery, stating he "understood the poetry of machinery"
   and that while in "our present factories, machinery work is killing for
   the worker" this was "a matter of bad organisation, and has nothing to
   do with the machine itself." [Memiors of a Revolutionist, p. 111]

   Kropotkin's vision was one of federations of decentralised communities
   in which production would be based on the "scattering of industries
   over the country -- so as to bring the factory amidst the fields . . .
   agriculture . . . combined with industry . . . to produce a combination
   of industrial with agricultural work." He considered this as "surely
   the next step to be made, as soon as a reorganisation of our present
   conditions is possible" and "is imposed by the very necessity of
   producing for the producers themselves." [Fields, Factories and
   Workshops Tomorrow, pp. 157-8] He based this vision on a detailed
   analysis of current economic statistics and trends.

   Kropotkin did not see such an anarchist economy as being based around
   the small community, taking the basic unit of a free society as one
   "large enough to dispose of a certain variety of natural resources --
   it may be a nation, or rather a region -- produces and itself consumes
   most of its own agricultural and manufactured produce." Such a region
   would "find the best means of combining agriculture with manufacture --
   the work in the field with a decentralised industry." Moreover, he
   recognised that the "geographical distribution of industries in a given
   country depends . . . to a great extent upon a complexus of natural
   conditions; it is obvious that there are spots which are best suited
   for the development of certain industries . . . The[se] industries
   always find some advantages in being grouped, to some extent, according
   to the natural features of separate regions." [Op. Cit., p. 26, p. 27
   and pp. 154-5]

   Kropotkin stressed that agriculture "cannot develop without the aid of
   machinery and the use of a perfect machinery cannot be generalised
   without industrial surroundings . . . The village smith would not do."
   He supported the integration of agriculture and industry, with "the
   factory and workshop at the gates of your fields and gardens" in which
   a "variety of agricultural, industrial and intellectual pursuits are
   combined in each community" to ensure "the greatest sum total of
   well-being." He thought that "large establishments" would still exist,
   but these would be "better placed at certain spots indicated by
   Nature." He stressed that it "would be a great mistake to imagine
   industry ought to return to its hand-work stage in order to be combined
   with agriculture. Whenever a saving of human labour can be obtained by
   means of a machine, the machine is welcome and will be resorted to; and
   there is hardly one single branch of industry into which machinery work
   could not be introduced with great advantage, at least at some of the
   stages of the manufacture." [Op. Cit., p. 156, p. 197, p. 18, pp. 154-5
   and pp. 151-2]

   Clearly Kropotkin was not opposed to large-scale industry for "if we
   analyse the modern industries, we soon discover that for some of them
   the co-operation of hundred, even thousands, of workers gathered at the
   same spot is really necessary. The great iron works and mining
   enterprises decidedly belong to that category; oceanic steamers cannot
   be built in village factories." However, he stressed that this
   objective necessity was not the case in many other industries and
   centralised production existed in these purely to allow capitalists "to
   hold command of the market" and "to suit the temporary interests of the
   few -- by no means those of the nation." Kropotkin made a clear
   division between economic tendencies which existed to aid the
   capitalist to dominate the market and enhance their profits and power
   and those which indicated a different kind of future. Once we consider
   the "moral and physical advantages which man would derive from dividing
   his work between field and the workshop" we must automatically evaluate
   the structure of modern industry with the criteria of what is best for
   the worker (and society and the environment) rather than what was best
   for capitalist profits and power. [Op. Cit., p. 153, p. 147 and p. 153]

   Clearly, Leninist summaries of Kropotkin's ideas on this subject are
   nonsense. Rather than seeing "small-scale" production as the basis of
   his vision of a free society, he saw production as being geared around
   the economic unit of a nation or region: "Each region will become its
   own producer and its own consumer of manufactured goods . . . [and] its
   own producer and consumer of agricultural produce." Industry would come
   to the village "not in its present shape of a capitalist factory" but
   "in the shape of a socially organised industrial production, with the
   full aid of machinery and technical knowledge." [Op. Cit., p. 40 and p.
   151]

   Industry would be decentralised and integrated with agriculture and
   based around communes, but these communes would be part of a federation
   and so production would be based around meeting the needs of these
   federations. A system of rational decentralisation would be the basis
   of Kropotkin's communist-anarchism, with productive activity and a free
   society's workplaces geared to the appropriate level. For those forms
   of industry which would be best organised on a large-scale would
   continue to be so organised, but for those whose current (i.e.,
   capitalist) structure had no objective need to be centralised would be
   broken up to allow the transformation of work for the benefit of both
   workers and society. Thus we would see a system of workplaces geared to
   local and district needs complementing larger factories which would
   meet regional and wider needs.

   Anarchism rejects the idea of small-scale production and isolated
   communes and, as we discussed in [54]section H.2.3, it does not look
   backwards for its ideal. The same applies to other forms of libertarian
   socialism with, for example, G.D.H. Cole arguing that we "cannot go
   back to 'town economy', a general regime of handicraft and
   master-craftmanship, tiny-scale production. We can neither pull up our
   railways, fill our mines, and dismantle our factories nor conduct our
   large-scale enterprises under a system developed to fit the needs of a
   local market and a narrowly-restricted production." The aim is "to
   reintroduce into industry the communal spirit, by re-fashioning
   industrialism in such a way as to set the communal motives free to
   co-operate." [Guild Socialism Reststed, pp. 45-6 and p. 46]

   The obvious implication of Leninist comments arguments against
   anarchist ideas on industrial transformation after a revolution is that
   they think that a socialist society will basically be the same as
   capitalism, using the technology, industry and industrial structure
   developed under class society without change (as noted in [55]section
   H.3.12, Lenin did suggest that was the case). Needless to say,
   capitalist industry, as Kropotkin was aware, has not developed
   neutrally nor purely because of technical needs. Rather it has been
   distorted by the twin requirements to maintain capitalist profits and
   power. One of the first tasks of a social revolution will be to
   transform the industrial structure, not keep it as it is. You cannot
   use capitalist means for socialist ends. So while we will "inherent" an
   industrial structure from capitalism it would be the greatest possible
   error to leave it unchanged and an even worse one to accelerate the
   processes by which capitalists maintain and increase their power (i.e.
   centralisation and concentration) in the name of "socialism."

   We are sorry to have laboured this point, but this issue is one which
   arises with depressing frequency in Marxist accounts of anarchism. It
   is best that we indicate that those who make the claim that anarchists
   seek "small scale" production geared for "small autonomous communities"
   simply show their ignorance. In actually, anarchists see production as
   being geared to whatever makes most social, economic and ecological
   sense. Some production and workplaces will be geared to the local
   commune, some will be geared to the district federation, some to the
   regional federation, and so on. It is for this reason anarchists
   support the federation of workers' associations as the means of
   combining local autonomy with the needs for co-ordination and joint
   activity. To claim otherwise is simply to misrepresent anarchist
   theory.

   Finally, it must be psychologically significant that Leninists
   continually go on about anarchists advocating "small" and "tiny"
   workplaces. Apparently size does matter and Leninists think their
   productive units are much, much bigger than anarchist ones. As has been
   proven, anarchists advocate appropriately sized workplaces and are not
   hung-up about their size. Why Leninists are could be a fruitful area of
   research...

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