Difference between revisions of "FAQAnar:I.4 - Comment une économie anarchiste fonctionnerait-elle ?"
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<blockquote>"''Ce qui est commun à tous les anarchistes est le désir de libérer la société de toutes les forces politiques et sociales des institutions coercitives qui se dressent sur la voie du développement d'une humanité libre. En ce sens, le mutualisme, le collectivisme, et le communisme ne doivent pas être considérées comme des systèmes fermés permettant à aucun autre le développement, mais seulement des hypothèses quant aux moyens de préserver une communauté libre. Il y aura même probablement, l'existence dans la société de l'avenir de différentes formes de coopération économique existant côte à côte, car tout le progrès social doit être associé par la pratique, l'essai et l'expérimentation libre, qui, dans une société de communautés libres, aura toutes les occasions offertes''"<ref>Anarcho-Syndicalisme, p. 16</ref>.</blockquote> | <blockquote>"''Ce qui est commun à tous les anarchistes est le désir de libérer la société de toutes les forces politiques et sociales des institutions coercitives qui se dressent sur la voie du développement d'une humanité libre. En ce sens, le mutualisme, le collectivisme, et le communisme ne doivent pas être considérées comme des systèmes fermés permettant à aucun autre le développement, mais seulement des hypothèses quant aux moyens de préserver une communauté libre. Il y aura même probablement, l'existence dans la société de l'avenir de différentes formes de coopération économique existant côte à côte, car tout le progrès social doit être associé par la pratique, l'essai et l'expérimentation libre, qui, dans une société de communautés libres, aura toutes les occasions offertes''"<ref>Anarcho-Syndicalisme, p. 16</ref>.</blockquote> | ||
| + | Ainsi, compte tenu des objectifs communs des anarchistes, ce n'est pas surprenant que les systèmes économiques donnent à penser qu'ils auront des caractéristiques communes, tels que l'auto-gestion, la fédération, le libre accord des travailleurs et ainsi de suite. Pour tous les anarchistes, l'"économie" est considérée comme une "''association volontaire qui organisera le travail, et sera le fabricant et le distributeur des produits nécessaires''" et c'"''est pour faire ce qui est utile. L'individu est pour faire ce qui est beau''"<ref>Oscar Wilde, l'âme de l'homme sous le socialisme, p. 1183</ref>. Par exemple, la machine "''se substituera au travail manuel dans la fabrication de biens. Mais en même temps, le travail manuel très probablement étendra son domaine de la finition artistique sur beaucoup de choses qui sont entièrement fabriquées dans l'usine''"<ref>Peter Kropotkin, champs, les usines et les lieux de travail de demain, p. 152</ref>. Murray Bookchin, des décennies plus tard, a plaidé pour la même idée: "''la machine supprimera la peine des processus de production, laissant la réalisation artistique à l'homme''"<ref>Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 134</ref>. | ||
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This "organisation of labour touches only such labours as others can do for us. . . the rest remain egoistic, because no one can in your stead elaborate your musical compositions, carry out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can replace Raphael's labours. The latter are labours of a unique person, which only he is competent to achieve." [Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, p. 268] Stirner goes on to ask "for whom is time to be gained [by association]? For what does man require more time than is necessary to refresh his wearied powers of labour? Here Communism is slient." He then answers his own question by arguing it is gained for the individual "[t]o take comfort in himself as unique, after he has done his part as man!" [Op. Cit., p. 269] Which is exactly what Kropotkin also argued: | This "organisation of labour touches only such labours as others can do for us. . . the rest remain egoistic, because no one can in your stead elaborate your musical compositions, carry out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can replace Raphael's labours. The latter are labours of a unique person, which only he is competent to achieve." [Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, p. 268] Stirner goes on to ask "for whom is time to be gained [by association]? For what does man require more time than is necessary to refresh his wearied powers of labour? Here Communism is slient." He then answers his own question by arguing it is gained for the individual "[t]o take comfort in himself as unique, after he has done his part as man!" [Op. Cit., p. 269] Which is exactly what Kropotkin also argued: | ||
Revision as of 19:42, 10 July 2008
Catégorie:À quoi une société anarchiste ressemblerait-elle ?
C'est une question importante pour tous les opposants à un système donné - par quoi allez vous le remplacer ? Nous pouvons dire, bien sûr, qu'il est inutile de faire des plans sur comment la future société anarchiste fonctionnera, puisque l'avenir sera créé par tout le monde, pas seulement par les quelques anarchistes et socialistes libertaires qui écrivent des livres et des FAQ's. Cela est vrai, nous ne pouvons pas prédire ce qu'une société libre sera effectivement similaire ou développé et nous n'avons pas l'intention de le faire ici. Toutefois, cette réponse (quel que soit ses autres bien-fondés) ne tient pas compte d'un point essentiel, les gens ont besoin d'avoir une idée de ce que l'anarchisme vise avant qu'ils ne décident de passer leur vie à tenter de le créer.
Alors, comment un système anarchiste fonctionnerait ? Cela dépend des idées économiques qu'ont les personnes. Une économie mutualiste fonctionne différemment d'une communiste, par exemple, mais ils ont des caractéristiques similaires. Comme Rudolf Rocker l'a dit:
"Ce qui est commun à tous les anarchistes est le désir de libérer la société de toutes les forces politiques et sociales des institutions coercitives qui se dressent sur la voie du développement d'une humanité libre. En ce sens, le mutualisme, le collectivisme, et le communisme ne doivent pas être considérées comme des systèmes fermés permettant à aucun autre le développement, mais seulement des hypothèses quant aux moyens de préserver une communauté libre. Il y aura même probablement, l'existence dans la société de l'avenir de différentes formes de coopération économique existant côte à côte, car tout le progrès social doit être associé par la pratique, l'essai et l'expérimentation libre, qui, dans une société de communautés libres, aura toutes les occasions offertes"[1].
Ainsi, compte tenu des objectifs communs des anarchistes, ce n'est pas surprenant que les systèmes économiques donnent à penser qu'ils auront des caractéristiques communes, tels que l'auto-gestion, la fédération, le libre accord des travailleurs et ainsi de suite. Pour tous les anarchistes, l'"économie" est considérée comme une "association volontaire qui organisera le travail, et sera le fabricant et le distributeur des produits nécessaires" et c'"est pour faire ce qui est utile. L'individu est pour faire ce qui est beau"[2]. Par exemple, la machine "se substituera au travail manuel dans la fabrication de biens. Mais en même temps, le travail manuel très probablement étendra son domaine de la finition artistique sur beaucoup de choses qui sont entièrement fabriquées dans l'usine"[3]. Murray Bookchin, des décennies plus tard, a plaidé pour la même idée: "la machine supprimera la peine des processus de production, laissant la réalisation artistique à l'homme"[4].
This "organisation of labour touches only such labours as others can do for us. . . the rest remain egoistic, because no one can in your stead elaborate your musical compositions, carry out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can replace Raphael's labours. The latter are labours of a unique person, which only he is competent to achieve." [Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, p. 268] Stirner goes on to ask "for whom is time to be gained [by association]? For what does man require more time than is necessary to refresh his wearied powers of labour? Here Communism is slient." He then answers his own question by arguing it is gained for the individual "[t]o take comfort in himself as unique, after he has done his part as man!" [Op. Cit., p. 269] Which is exactly what Kropotkin also argued:
"He [sic!] will discharge his task in the field, the factory, and so on, which he owes to society as his contribution to the general production. And he will employ the second half of his day, his week, or his year, to satisfy his artistic or scientific needs, or his hobbies." [Conquest of Bread, p. 111]
Thus, while authoritarian Communism ignores the unique individual (and that was the only kind of Communism existing when Stirner wrote his classic book) libertarian communists agree with Stirner and are not silent. Like him, they consider the whole point of organising labour as the means of providing the individual the time and resources required to express their individuality. In other words, to pursue "labours of a unique person." Thus all anarchists base their arguments for a free society on how it will benefit actual individuals, rather than abstracts or amorphous collectives (such as "society"). Hence chapter 9 of The Conquest of Bread, "The Need for Luxury" and, for that matter, chapter 10, "Agreeable Work."
Or, to bring this ideal up to day, as Chomsky put it, "[t]he task for a modern industrial society is to achieve what is now technically realisable, namely, a society which is really based on free voluntary participation of people who produce and create, live their lives freely within institutions they control, and with limited hierarchical structures, possibly none at all." [quoted by Albert and Hahnel in Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century, p. 62]
In other words, anarchists desire to organise voluntary workers associations which will try to ensure a minimisation of mindless labour in order to maximise the time available for creative activity both inside and outside "work." This is to be achieved by free co-operation between equals, for while competition may be the "law of the jungle", co-operation is the law of civilisation.
This co-operation is not based on "altruism," but self-interest. As Proudhon argued, "[m]utuality, reciprocity exists 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." [quoted by Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, pp. 29-30] In other words, solidarity and co-operation allows us time to enjoy life and to gain the benefits of our labour ourselves - Mutual Aid results in a better life than mutual struggle and so "the association for struggle will be a much more effective support for civilisation, progress, and evolution than is the struggle for existence with its savage daily competitions." [Luigi Geallani, The End of Anarchism, p. 26]
In the place of the rat race of capitalism, economic activity in an anarchist society would be one of the means to humanise and individualise ourselves and society, to move from surviving to living. Productive activity should become a means of self-expression, of joy, of art, rather than something we have to do to survive. Ultimately, "work" should become more akin to play or a hobby than the current alienated activity. The priorities of life should be towards individual self-fulfilment and humanising society rather than "running society as an adjunct to the market," to use Polanyi's expression, and turning ourselves into commodities on the labour market. Thus anarchists agree with John Stuart Mill when he wrote:
"I confess I am not charmed with an ideal of life held out by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on; that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other's heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human kind, or anything but the disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress." [Collected Works, vol. III, p. 754]
The aim of anarchism is far more than the end of poverty. Hence Proudhon's comment that socialism's "underlying dogma" is that the "objective of socialism is the emancipation of the proletariat and the eradication of poverty." This emancipation would be achieved by ending "wage slavery" via "democratically organised workers' associations." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 57 and p.62] Or, in Kropotkin's words, "well-being for all" -- physical, mental and moral! Indeed, by concentrating on just poverty and ignoring the emancipation of the proletariat, the real aims of socialism are obscured. As Kropotkin argued:
"The 'right to well-being' means the possibility of living like human beings, and of bringing up children to be members of a society better than ours, whilst the 'right to work' only means the right to be a wage-slave, a drudge, ruled over and exploited by the middle class of the future. The right to well-being is the Social Revolution, the right to work means nothing but the Treadmill of Commercialism. It is high time for the worker to assert his right to the common inheritance, and to enter into possession of it." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 44]
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, argues that "there are horizontal links (market), there are vertical links (hierarchy). What other dimension is there?" [Alex Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism, p. 226] In other words, Nove states that to oppose central planning means to embrace the market. This, however, is not true. Horizontal links need not be market based any more than vertical links need be hierarchical. But the core point in his argument is very true, 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 any "vertical" 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 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.
So, while refusing to define exactly how an anarchist system will work, we will explore the implications of how the anarchist principles and ideals outlined above could be put into practice. Bear in mind that this is just a possible framework for a system which has few historical examples to draw upon as evidence. This means that we can only indicate the general outlines of what an anarchist society could be like. Those seeking "recipes" and exactness should look elsewhere. In all likelihood, the framework we present will be modified and changed (even ignored) in light of the real experiences and problems people will face when creating a new society.
Lastly we should point out that there may be a tendency for some to compare this framework with the theory of capitalism (i.e. perfectly functioning "free" markets or quasi-perfect ones) as opposed to its reality. A perfectly working capitalist system only exists in text books and in the heads of ideologues who take the theory as reality. No system is perfect, particularly capitalism, and to compare "perfect" capitalism with any system is a pointless task. In addition, there will be those who seek to apply the "scientific" principles of the neo-classical economics to our ideas. By so doing they make what Proudhon called "the radical vice of political economy", namely "affirming as a definitive state a transitory condition -- namely, the division of society intto patricians and proletares." [System of Economical Contradictions, p. 67] Thus any attempt to apply the "laws" developed from theorising about capitalism to anarchism will fail to capture the dynamics of a non-capitalist system (given that neo-classical economics fails to understand the dynamics of capitalism, what hope does it have of understanding non-capitalist systems which reject the proprietary despotism and inequalities of capitalism?).
John Crump stresses this point in his discussion of Japanese anarchism:
"When considering the feasibility of the social system advocated by the pure anarchists, we need to be clear about the criteria against which it should be measured. It would, for example, be unreasonable to demand that it be assessed against such yardsticks of a capitalist economy as annual rate of growth, balance of trade and so forth . . . evaluating anarchist communism by means of the criteria which have been devised to measure capitalism's performance does not make sense . . . capitalism would be . . . baffled if it were demanded that it assess its operations against the performance indicators to which pure anarchists attached most importance, such as personal liberty, communal solidarity and the individual's unconditional right to free consumption. Faced with such demands, capitalism would either admit that these were not yardsticks against which it could sensibly measure itself or it would have to resort to the type of grotesque ideological subterfuges which it often employs, such as identifying human liberty with the market and therefore with wag slavery. . . The pure anarchists' confidence in the alternative society they advocated derived not from an expectation that it would quantitatively outperform capitalism in terms of GNP, productivity or similar capitalist criteria. On the contrary, their enthusiasm for anarchist communism flowed from their understanding that it would be qualitatively different from capitalism. Of course, this is not to say that the pure anarchists were indifferent to questions of production and distribution . . . they certainly believed that anarchist communism would provide economic well-being for all. But neither were they prepared to give priority to narrowly conceived economic expansion, to neglect individual liberty and communal solidarity, as capitalism regularly does." [Hatta Shuzo and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan, pp. 191-3]
As Kropotkin argued, "academic political economy has been only an enumeration of what happens under the . . . conditions [of capitalism] -- without distinctly stating the conditions themselves. And then, having described the facts [academic neo-classical economics usually does not even do that, we must stress, but Kropotkin had in mind the likes of Adam Smith and Ricardo, not modern neo-classical economics] which arise in our societies under these conditions, they represent to use these facts as rigid, inevitable economic laws." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 179] So, by changing the conditions we change the "economic laws" of a society and so capitalist economics is not applicable to post (or pre) capitalist society (nor are its justifications for existing inequalities in wealth and power).
Notes et references
- ↑ Anarcho-Syndicalisme, p. 16
- ↑ Oscar Wilde, l'âme de l'homme sous le socialisme, p. 1183
- ↑ Peter Kropotkin, champs, les usines et les lieux de travail de demain, p. 152
- ↑ Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 134
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