That could work for something like garbage collection, where the stakes and skill level are relatively low. But there’s also jobs that are critical and high skill, like operating a power plant. You’re probably going to want the same people doing that consistently, and again, it’s relying on skilled people sacrificing a lot of time and energy, with no clear reward or incentive.
OBJECTION!
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Help me out here.
Adam grows enough food for himself, eats said food, then spends the rest of his time watching movies. Bob and Charlie don’t grow any food, Bob spends his time keeping the reactor from melting down, and Charlie spends all his time at the movies.
Who exactly is exercising “hierarchal authority” over who? Is Adam exercising hierarchal authority over Bob and Charlie for not growing enough food for them? Are Bob and Charlie exercising hierarchal authority over each other by not providing each other with food? How does this work exactly?
Would it be exerting heirarchal authority for me to go out right now and plant some potatoes in my backyard and then eat them once they’re grown? Am I exerting heirarchal authority right now by posting, rather than spending this time growing food to give to the hungry?
Literally every ideology-driven argument falls apart when it’s time to talk implementation.
Now show me a society with values that supports delayed gratification as a moral value. I’ll wait.
This strikes me as just wish-casting, and falls to your own observation about implementation. Yes, it would be nice if people were angels, but unless you have a clear strategy to make that change happen, that’s nothing but a wish.
Jimmy Carter tried to make this pitch, as he was implementing neoliberalism. He tried to sell the lower wages with this idea of not being so preoccupied with material wealth. He lost in a devastating landslide to Reagan, who doubled down on neoliberalism but focused on lower prices while ignoring the lower wages, and threw on a different aesthetic about how indulgent it would be. Not that this has stopped Democrats since then from taking similar approaches and getting similar results.
So given that there have been significant political forces advocating for what you’re saying, and people have resoundingly rejected them, where does that leave you? What’s your plan for getting everyone to stop being the way they are?
Also, the fact is that this idea of a system of “ethical capitalism” hasn’t happened is not a point in favor, it’s a point against. Generally, you want to have some sort of evidence or proof of concept behind the thing you’re advocating for.
It doesn’t really matter? So then you’re not actually serious about your ideology at all.
If I’m going to ask people to risk life and limb fighting to establish a new system then I kinda think it does matter whether that system has fundamental, unanswerable flaws that can be exposed in four minute comedy sketch.
You’re not talking about making a wardrobe with a hammer, you’re talking about making a perpetual motion machine with a hammer, and when I ask to see the design of that perpetual motion machine, or how it resolves the fundamental problems with making a perpetual motion machine, you’re telling me, “Well, there’s not just one design, there’s lots of designs out there so one of them probably works.”
So, no, you have no answer to that problem at all.
I have absolutely no interest in hearing, “Well, there are dozens of possible economic systems that could be implemented under anarchism that might answer your question.” I want to know about one economic system that does answer it. I don’t care how many there are that don’t.
OK, and can you provide one economic model that’s consistent with anarchism that provides an actual answer to my question?
How? What’s to stop anybody from coming up and saying, “I work with Dicknose up at the power plant, give me a food?”
So what is your answer to the problems it raises?
At the social level: recognition and respect from community members, status grounded in contribution rather than wealth, reciprocal relationships and mutual aid, and the experience of belonging.
Mutual aid is already acknowledged in the sketch. I don’t see any answer to the problem of doing it at scale.
If you need to provide hundreds of people with mutual aid for decades, then you’re probably going to have to have some sort of system to ensure people contribute to it and it goes to the right people. Congratulations, you just reinvented government, and contradicted the meme.
That’s not the criticism that’s being made here. The criticism is not in how the power plant is organized, which the sketch doesn’t talk about that at all. The criticism is that you’d need people in the plant and if that work isn’t rewarded or paid in some way, they’re not going to be able to provide for themselves.
Let me put it this way: maybe society is so filled with angels that things like this wouldn’t be a problem.
Regardless, we should probably set up incentive structures such that pro-social behavior is rewarded rather than depending on the kindness of everyone’s hearts, and being completely fucked otherwise.
Also, it’s still going to be more efficient for one person to go around collecting their neighbors’ trash and driving it to the dump, and it kinda sounds like someone’s gonna still end up doing that, they just won’t be getting paid for it.
The issue is that we’re not talking about pitching in occasionally, we’re talking about like a full time job that you do for no pay. And the difference isn’t necessarily electricity on or off, maybe you end up with a skeleton crew that isn’t able to keep up with maintenance and the like, leading to more frequent outages.
And if your answer is mutual aid, then you’re basically just suggesting that everyone gets paid via GoFundMe. Instead of a consistent salary, that you can spend on whatever you like you get whatever and however much the community decides to give you. You’d have to worry as much about making sure everyone knows that you’re keeping the lights on, as you do about actually keeping the lights on.
Is everyone going to be recognized by everyone else? There’s so many thankless but essential jobs. I have no idea who works to keep my house powered now, and I’m not sure how I would.
The fact is that there’s a certain demand for jobs and there’s a certain supply of people who are interested in those jobs, and what you’re suggesting is that the supply and demand is going to happen to line up perfectly for every job. There’s no reason why that would be the case. Of course you can just say, “well some people find garbage collection really fun” for any job but the chances that there will be exactly the right number of volunteers, who are willing to work that job 40 hours a week long term with no pay, for every single job that needs to exist, the chances of that are infinitesimally small. This just seems like wishful thinking. I don’t think we should set up systems where plan A is everyone being angels and plan B is society falls apart completely.
If something needs to be done reliably and consistently, then you need to make sure there are reliable and consistent incentives. I don’t see how it’s different from saying, “We should cut food stamps and let donations cover it.” Donations and volunteer work aren’t going to be as consistent as an actual program.