How would public infrastructure be built or maintained since there are no taxes? Like roads or pavements or sidewalks or traffick lights etc. You can't just pay to walk on sidewalks Everytime. Like what mechanism or institution are you introducing which would replace taxation so that "fruits of labour" are put into collective good? I mean construction cooperatives for roads are not going to be funded out of thin air.

I'm new to Mutualism btw

So I think most of us here are information communists.

What I mean by that is that once information has been produced, thanks to the wonders of the internet, it's basically cost free to reproduce (hell even before the invention of the internet the cost would have been solely the manufacturing of paper, ink, and the price of labor, amongst others. The information itself didn't cost anything).

I've been thinking about the implications of this position a lot and I'm quite fond of it. However I ran into a bit of a snag when thinking about technology and wanted some input.

Basically, within mutualist markets profit is socialized through reduced costs yeah? The initial inventor is compensated for the cost of innovation (and possibly a little extra as a reward) by the sudden increase in business she gets when she cuts production costs. This is temporary though, because competitors adopt similar strategies and the disparity in price dissappears.

What I am wondering is, once that innovation has been discovered, how does is spread to other producers?

If it was the work of multiple people, it's easy to see how, labor mobility means they bring that knowledge to other projects.

But what about individuals? Say our inventor is tinkering in her bedroom and discovers a way to reduce Widget production costs by 1%.

She then implements this when selling widgets. Why would she share that innovation? After all, she gets more business if she doesn't right?

I suppose competitors could pay her to tell them how she did it. Or they could reverse engineer it?

But it seems much simpler to have her share the innovation. Like, early computer clubs used to share their schematics for free with each other, and i think that's pretty cool. So, my question is, is there a good incentive for that sharing? If so, what is it?

If not, how would such an innovation spread within mutualist markets or a broader mutualist society?

Perhaps there could be reciprocal information sharing? Or perhaps the customers reduce their own costs in exchange for sharing it? Or perhaps reputational benefits would go to the innovator which can be transformed into commissions and customizations (my only hang up here is, do you need to share the tech for that? In a cost-price economy any decrease in price means you figured out a way to decrease cost which could boost reputation anyways right?)

So I was researching National Syndicalism its routes. And in an Article by Edouard Berth "Anarchism and Syndicalism." He used this quote to refer to Proudhon opinion on war. I am not a Proudhon scholar, nor has read War and Peace. However it makes me very curious on Proudhon's opinion on war.
“War is the most profound and sublime phenomenon of our moral life. Nothing else can compare with it: neither the interesting ceremonial of worship, nor the actions of monarchical power, nor the gigantic creations of industry. In the harmonies of nature and humanity, war sounds the most powerful note; its works sweep over the soul like thunder, like the voice of the hurricane. A mixture of genius and boldness, of poetry and passion, of the highest justice and tragic heroism … its majesty dazzles us, and the more we contemplate it, the more our hearts are filled with enthusiasm. War, perceived by a false philosophy and an even falser philanthropy as nothing but a horrible scourge, an outburst of our innate evil and a manifestation of heavenly anger, is the most incorruptible expression of our conscience, the act that confers the most honor on us in the light of creation and Eternity. The idea of war is equivalent to its phenomenology. It is one of those ideas that, from the very first moment of their appearance, absorb all one’s attention, that make us confess, so to speak, with full knowledge and with full feeling, and to which, by virtue of their universality, logic gives the name of categories. For war is both unitary and triune like God, it is the unity in one nature of these three roots: force, the principle of movement and of life, which is found in the ideas of cause, soul, will, freedom and spirit; conflict, action-reaction, the universal law of the world and, like force, one of Kant’s twelve categories; and justice, the sovereign faculty of the soul, the principle of our practical reason, which is manifested in nature by equilibrium. If we pass from the phenomenology and the idea of war to its object, it forfeits none of our admiration. The purpose of war, its role in humanity, consists in encouraging all the human faculties and thus creating, in the center of and above these faculties, law, and making it universal and, with the help of this universalization of law, in defining and forming society”

Did Proudhon mean this, or was it took out of context? I'd really like to know.

Would there be money or labour vouchers, or other form of exchange?

I recently learned about the federation of worker and consumer cooperatives operating in Venezuela called Cecosesola thanks to this video: https://youtu.be/xfE6Nsuaf50?si=A8jWp-xrTvXanrCV

TL;DW - As I understand it, Cecosesola is a federation of horizontal worker and consumer cooperatives where discussions are held and mostly informal decisions are made through those discussions. Positions are rotated frequently and through informal means to distribute experience in a variety of skills and the overall orientation of the cooperatives is focused on meeting and sustaining the needs of those involved.

I'm new to mutualism so I would like to hear the thoughts of those who are more familiar with the theory and historical practice.

My question is what are your thoughts on Cecosesola? Are there any gaps or critiques missed by this YouTuber? Can they be seen as an example of mutualism in action? And finally, is this an example of prefiguring an alternative market economy of freely associating workers and consumers?

Of course, this is probably very much discussed by Proudhon but I haven't the time to really read through those specific works so that is part of the reasoning I'm asking this question. Not for a comprehensive answer but simply food for thought.

If anarchy gives us the means to produce justice or social equilibrium through our freedom and the high costs associated with conflict or harm and thus balance, what happens when we understand hierarchy as imbalance and artificially imposed imbalance? How does our understanding of hierarchy, how it emerges and how it functions, change?

Hello,

This is the first writeup by us, a loose anarchist and mathematics collective, which formed after a post on r/Anarchism. We focused here on understanding the economics and ideas underlying Warrenism and Warrenite experiments. We include a mathematical model, a historical analysis, and suggestions for updates to the modern day for Warrenite experiments or counter-economics. The PDF can be downloaded and read here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/128l_jak7gk8JczoVs-1l5prjrVEn6mWm/view?usp=sharing

We hope that this writeup can help the imaginations of any anarchists or organizers involved in counter-economics or base building. I'd be happy to take questions here. Some other contributors that may lurk in this sub might also jump in. We'll hopefully work on another writeup soon, this time in the realm of more anarcho-communist ideas.

Personally speaking, the content of these writeups are a little too on the complex and technical side, but hopefully this is readable for anybody interested, not just those with technical know-how.

Hello everyone, do you know any good books on mutualism? I mean explicitly books that describe in concrete terms what a mutualist society should look like. I recently read "Theory of Property" by Proudhon in the hope of learning more about mutualism. The book was very interesting but unfortunately Proudhon only very briefly describes how he thinks a mutualist society works.

A few thoughts, from elsewhere, about the trajectory of the New Proudhon Library project:

Over the next few days, I'll finish up drafts of Proudhon's "Confessions of a Revolutionary" and "Revolutionary Ideas," the collection of short works published in 1849. Over the weekend, I should finish a draft of "Acts of the Revolution," the short collection from 1850. With the first "Solution of the Social Problem" pamphlet already complete, I can then use these three historical publications as the basis for dividing up the remaining material from the "Mélanges," plus some unpublished material from the newspapers, into three collections.

I'm thinking that the "Confessions" and the articles from the "Représentant du Peuple" and the "Peuple," minus the mutual credit material, will make up one volume. The mutual credit material, including Ramon de la Sagra's book and other articles, will make a second. The debate on the State, with material from Blanc, Leroux, Duchêne, etc., will make up a third. "Interest and Principle" will go somewhere, depending on the relative size of the last two volumes. "The Right to Work and the Right of Property" might end up with the three memoirs. There's a legislative proposal on railways that, if I can track it down, might go in a volume with the transport industry publications, but it looks like the works for 1847-1850 should fit pretty neatly in three volumes, with plenty of supplementary material.

The logical companion volume to those would be a collection of some of the best of the large number of articles and pamphlets written about Proudhon during those years — perhaps with the period translations I have been collecting.

I have a rough outline for an edition of Proudhon's works — minus the correspondence and, for now, some manuscript material that should eventually see publication — in about 20 volumes, which I am using to guide my draft-translation efforts. But what is increasingly clear, as I work back and forth across Proudhon's works, is that the path forward to a really useful edition of the works probably involves the preparation of a sort of provisional, interim edition—revised drafts of some significant portion of the whole—which can then be used to construct the tools for a really thorough revision and annotation in the next phase, establishing a standard for continuing work. That was always likely—and daunting—but the current pace of bulk translation makes success seem much more likely. And, should things not proceed, for whatever reason, to the final stages of completeness, the interim edition will serve the purpose of preserving and documenting the work done to that point.

Here is the first work and here is the second.

Essentially, I am interested in works discussing child-rearing, anarchist families, and other similar topics either within the works themselves or as the subject of the entire work.

If I find enough, I may make a post where I list all of them for the purposes of anyone interested in anarchist education, family organization, or child-rearing. If you are familiar with any, please cite them to me.

Hi!

I have thought about Mutualism for some time now, like couple months and I agree with all it's premises, but I have one important for me question, housing. Let me give an example where I would like to get a response from more knowledgeable people.

If I would happen to be a new resident of a city, and have 0 money to spend on housing myself, where would I sleep? Would there be some mutually agreed community apartments / homes that would be allocated for everyone by the needs that they have? Or would I just become homeless?

Also if I would happen to be a tourist, and don't want to buy a house, and I just want to have a place t osleep in for a 2 weeks, how is it dealt with? Is then paying rent acceptable? Mutualism by definition excludes rent as a great thing to make money from.

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I was wondering how the notion of Mutualism might play out in this example. Mutualism is widely regarded as an anarchist current, because it is. But there are a few instances of Proudhon himself where he mentioned that a state can in fact play a role in a mutualist society in his book "General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century", albeit a very limited one and one that's also completely subordinate to the people. Isn't that supposed very limited state a form of authority then, and by that logic, can you call it Anarchist? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that's exactly where I stand when it comes to Mutualism. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting Proudhon's words?

So, by that logic, is Mutualism purely anarchical (as in, no form of government in this sense) or are there mutualists that also believe in a Minarchist state and can't label themselves as Anarchist?

I'm all for a Minarchist state (like some form of federation or confederation) whose only task is to protect it's citizens, and perhaps, handle immigration, but I reject the capitalist aspect of Minarchism and am all for a mutualist approach.

Recently, I skimmed through Michael Seidman's Workers Against Work. It was thrust upon by Marxist-Leninists or Stalinists aiming to critique the CNT-FAI however it was written by an anarchist and it seemed to back its claims with sources. When reading through some of it, I was struck by various ideas about the causes for worker resistance even after the revolution. For instance, the author states:

When the unions took control of the factories, the traditional working-class demands did not cease, and many wage earners continued to ask for more pay and persisted in their attempts to avoid constraints of factory space and time. The CNT and UGT militants who ran the collectives opposed many of the workers’ desires that they had once supported; in the difficult times of war and Revolution, they called for more work and sacrifice. Rank-and-file workers frequently ignored these calls and acted as though the union militants were the new ruling elite. Direct and indirect resistances to work became major points of conflict between the base and the militants, just as they had been when the bourgeoisie controlled the productive forces. In Barcelona and in Paris, industrial managers of various political convictions were compelled to confront this aspect of working-class culture.

There are other more specific examples given in the following paragraphs.

One hypothesis I had for why this is the case, besides holding onto too much on an organizational structure that might not be too accommodating to anarchist relations and consequently anarchist productive capacity, is that anarcho-syndicalism may not actually have prepared workers for undertaking production for themselves.

The primary mechanism of unions is not to engage in their own production but rather to do the opposite and find ways to undermine productive capacities for their own advantage which works vis-a-vis capitalists but makes figuring out how to transition post-revolution difficult.

Appropriating the pre-revolutionary infrastructure and not having sufficient time or vision for how to organize production in ways more aligned with anarchist organizational principles, the CNT-FAI was left reproducing similar organizational dynamics of the capitalist order and the workers, being trained to undermine production not produce, applied their tactics against them. In fact, this is a sentiment somewhat agreed with by the author themselves:

Thus, the declaration of the CNT Metallurgical Union at Casa Girona, which blamed Communists for its production problems, reduced complex industrial and social difficulties to a rather simplistic political level. Except for changes in the industrial decision-making process that the theory of autogestion introduced, neither the CNT nor the UGT provided an alternative model to develop the productive forces. When the unions were faced with industrial problems such as poor productivity and workers’ indifference, they were forced to tie pay to output, just as the capitalists had done

If my hypothesis is correct, and it could be wrong, this may be the advantage mutualism has over anarcho-syndicalism. Mutualist counter-institutions entail creating means for people to autonomously meet their own needs or desires outside the confines of the capitalist economy in the here and now. This trains skills in producing, specifically for ones own use or for the use of this counter-economy, and doing so autonomously for your interests or your shared interests.

Consequently, mutualist institutions put greater thought in finding ways to produce in ways aligned with anarchist organizational structures and so ideally it builds the pre-revolutionary infrastructure required to transition to more anarchic forms of organization that will put labor in-line with the interests of that labor. They also focus upon fostering initiative as well.

Any thoughts or disagreements? I'm sure I said plenty wrong but this is my current understanding.

I recently read this Libertarian Labyrinth article which discussed a project wherein Shawn Wilbur would, from what I understand, look into a variety of different possible alternatives for marriage which Proudhon called "the organ of justice". One of those roles was the justicier which is described as "essentially the individual who accepts the challenge of the anarchic Encounter as the whole of the 'social system,' and attempts to act accordingly, to bring and maintain justice".

But I lack sufficient knowledge of anarchist theory and Proudhon's sociology to really interrogate what that means. I understand that "justice" refers to "balance" in the context of Proudhon's work but I'm not certain what the "anarchic Encounter" means in this context (from what I understood, the anarchic Encounter is an encounter with anarchy right?) or what acting to bring and maintain justice looks like.

If anyone more familiar with this specific project of Shawn's, especially people familiar with Two-Gun Mutualism, than I am could explain or expand upon this please let me know! This includes Shawn himself of course.

How do regions of the developing world which become anarchist develop their capital? Currently, most capital is monopolized by the "Global North" as well as many Northeast Asian countries. This is the case now due to a variety of economic and political reasons however it appears to me that anarchy would effectively close off this region from the rest of the world.

I've speculated of obtaining foreign goods and capital through networks of mutual banks in foreign countries sort of as a kind of "black market" to exchange domestic goods and products for foreign capital. However, because people are forced to play on the terms of anarchists, it may mean that lots of major capital which is currently monopolized by major corporations, is unavailable.

How would we get around this?

I was initially drawn to mutualism for market socialist/anarchist circles (I loved, and still do love, a lot of Carson's work and the c4ss guys more broadly) cause if you spend a long time on the internet talking about market socialism, people eventually point you to mutualism.

However, after being on this sub for a while and learning a lot I've kinda shifted away from that and more towards the sorta of Wilbur-esque Neo-proudhonianism and synthesis approach. Not that I'm anti-market or anything, I'm just more open to other forms of organization as well.

Because of that background my actual knowledge of Proudhon is weaker than my understanding of folks like Benjamin Tucker. So, I'm trying to better engage with Proudhon himself and really get a grounding in his ideas.

To do that, I've been reading a lot of libertarian labyrinth. One consistent theme I seen in a lot of the articles is the right of escheat, which I basically understand as the right of the state to take the property of someone who has died so that it doesn't "remain in limbo" (slight tangent, but would the American federal government's right of eminent domain fall into this category? It is state seizure of property but the person didn't die).

I came across this passage:

And if I am anywhere near correct that it is various forms of something like escheat that connects the various kinds of exploitation that we currently experience, then I am probably not too far wrong in thinking that the entire abandonment of the polity-form is the key to shifting from archic to anarchic forms of social organization.

https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/contrun/note-on-mutualism-and-the-market-form/

I do not fully understand how these two concepts connect.

I did some more reading and came across:

What Proudhon seems to do is to insist that some version of this principle already contributes ito the very constitution of property. Individual workers can only make individual claims, with the fruits of collective force doomed to “limbo” (which here means essentially anything resembling “social property”) and eventually passing to to a capitalist class by virtue of their position as apparent “head” of some economic body (firm, economy, etc.)

https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/featured-articles/escheat-and-anarchy/

I don't fully understand this. I can see how the right to inherit dead people's property being seized by the state will allow it to give that to favored insiders, and thus giving rise to a class of property owners which we wouldn't see if property were not seized this way. How does this connect to governmentalism AS A CONCEPT though? Or the polity-form?

To what extent is escheat actually responsible for the capital accumulation we see today?

And one final question: to what extent does this logic apply to socialized property? When I imagine a libertarian socialist world, I tend to imagine that all is owned collectively and control of something is based around o/u. So like, anyone can work in a collectively owned factory (assuming they don't destroy it a la usufruct) but they don't control it unless they actually use it (consumers and workers of its products have a say in its production, not some guy across the world).

In such a system, I don't really see how accumulation a la escheat could occur, but I have read on labyrinth that a lot of Proudhon's property critiques apply to collectivized property as well, so I wanted to ask anyways.

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Thanks!

I was reading an old AMA a few days ago on r/DebateAnarchism.

While there I came across a discussion over Tucker's baking monopoly and the role it plays within capitalism.

Generally the more individualist or market oriented folks (i.e. the ones who draw on Tucker a lot, c4ss types) tend to be more aligned with the view that this monopoly is the key to capitalism.

The more neo-proudhonian not-ruling-out-markets types tend to be more skeptical of this.

I couldn't really find any details on why the logic behind that view, and so I'd like to learn more

For the more neo-proudhonians here, why do you think the abolition of the banking monopoly will not kill capitalism?

Cause it does end the separation between workers and capital, as they are now able to acquire their own right? Even if we take a sorta of LWMA lockean approach (i.e. not a mutualist one cause not using o/u) so long as finance is socialized shouldn't capital be available to every worker?

I'd like to better understand this line if thought.

If there are any articles on the topic you have read and or written I'd love to read them!

Thank you!

Hello everyone. Cutting to the chase, I have been researching the idea of a mutual credit association quite a bit and I actually consider making a proposal to some friends of mine. For the record we are like a handful of folks in their 20s, all of us at college, but we can scale that. 

The idea/framework for analysis is that of an Association of Credit, intended to make advances to members, via the issuance of a negotiable credit instrument (promissory note or bill of exchange), loaned out to members, under a specific condition of payment/guarantee: the payment of a definite sum necessary to the functioning of those associations (e.g. 1% interest in lieu of dues, that could be deducted from the face value of the note). The amount credited, is for the members to meet their basic needs within a specific time frame (a month or a year etc) in order pursue professional and vocational interests independently. With the end of the time period, the note/bill is considered repaid and can be reissued (rolled-over?) to the next time period. One final note: the use of debt instruments is intended to substitute cash, since cash will not be readily available to the Association at the start, to extend such "gratuitous credit" at sufficient quantities.

Is this idea good and could it function, generally speaking, or is there something that we will need to improvise?

Thanks in advance