The concept of stateless communism makes no sense to me...

The concept of stateless communism makes no sense to me, but I haven't done much reading and am open to the possibility that I am merely stupid. Help me out here.

-If it's stateless, what stops assholes (foreign or domestic) from organizing a militia to take shit over one town at a time? How are internal conflicts resolved?

-Who organizes the complex logistics necessary to produce and distribute all of the goods and services everyone needs? Is there some elected central body? If so, how is this not a state?

-The concept of superabundance seems to presuppose that factories are actually Star Trek Replicators and can make more shit than anyone would ever want. What would actually bring about superabundance?

-What reward structures exist? I know some people work for fun, but there's a lot of septic tanks and only so many people who derive personal satisfaction from unclogging them.

Plus, some people are just lazy. (citation: I am lazy)

If any of these situations are a reality in your system then it is most likely still a socialist society and not communist one

Which situations? Assholes existing? Logistics being necessary? Superabundance…?

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The rest of the people. Everyone should have guns and be ready to stop them. This is a necessary part of a stateless society.

Depends on the system but it varies between things like a computer system where people input demands and the computer relays that to whomever produces that demand and people getting together to discuss and plan what to produce.

We could probably bring this about in a few decades if we stopped using so much production for useless shit. Make things to last instead of to be thrown away. Stop making plastic trinkets and graphic tees that people care about for five minutes and then discard. Etc. Things like this exist because wage labor creates a need for work. Capital needs people to buy things. People need money to buy things. People need to work to get money. Because Capital takes as much as it can, it's not possible to just pay people more money when technology makes production more efficient, instead people get fired and new jobs have to be invented so they can keep buying things.

People who can figure out how to make septic work more efficient are rewarded by being compensated the same amount despite working in septic tanks less of the time. In capitalism, someone figuring out a more efficient way to produce is going to either get fired or watch their coworkers get fired and not get paid any more for doing the same amount of work.

Then either they don't get the bonuses from working (communism would provide the basic necessities like food and healthcare) while other people could exchange their labor for luxuries OR everyone's taken care of and the amount of necessary labor is covered by volunteers OR we have FALC and people would only do work out of inherent interest.

I think Marxism is the best analysis of capitalism and political economy in general but don't believe in communism is possible. I think some form of socialism is the best we'll get

most commons exist without much state interference
a beach is a commons for example. You go there, use it freely, don't attack anyone else or force anyone off the beach, and leave. no state required. (unless somebody starts dumping toxic waste on the beach, but even then you and the rest of the folks on the beach could beat him up or something, no need to call the cops)

Thank you for your response.

Sounds like communism in one country really is impossible, because foreign opponents could maintain large, organized armies which which can overpower armed citizenry.

It'd be a heck of a discussion. Modern industry can be extremely complex, requiring many inputs from all over the world, a vast transit network, specialized machines and labor at every step, etc. How is it possible for such a thing to be unstructured?

Maybe some day in the future an AI could organize everything, but right now, computers are only tools that assist humans. A robust national IT system (such as a more advanced version of Cybersyn) could be very helpful, but it requires at least nominal obedience to a central authority.

I thought the labor theory of value means that more efficient machinery reduces the intrinsic value of products, because each has less labor input?

Plus, what do you do if not enough people are performing the task to begin with? Septic tanks were just an example, but surely you could imagine such a situation.

How is this possible without any form of currency?

my thinking is this, a democratic central body can makes decisions and punish violent people, but has no power to coerce or harm anyone who doesn't already commit violence. then I wouldn't consider it a state in the same way.
I actually sort of agree with you, but i think it's still a good hypothetical goal to work towards even if it's always on the horizon, giving people the maximum liberty possible is ideal.

Sure. How are these handled without some kind of hierarchy or authority?

I don't mean to offend, but that sounds suspiciously like the concept of the NAP, where people self-organize to promote the good and eject the bad without any need for cops or laws, and somehow power-mad jerks don't take over as is traditional.

I'd argue that public spaces like beaches work at a relatively small scale because you CAN call the cops or the coast guard. Even if no cops show up all day, everyone knows they might go to jail and behave accordingly.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying everyone's a violent asshole for no reason. Most people are, if not good, then generally okay, and an abundance of goods and freedom would help bring out the good in them. But on a large scale, you still gotta prepare for Napoleon.

That's what I'm asking. How does a stateless society maintain itself?

What if you're a pacifist who doesn't want to use weapons?

As long as you use weapons to support an armed revolution, whether you like or not, that's fine. If you stand willingly unarmed in the face of armed bourgeois lackeys then good riddance if you die.

So death to all pacifists?

Not necessarily. But if a need arises during a revolution and someone knowingly and actively avoids filing that need, not because they are scared for their life but because they "don't want to use weapons", then they might as well just die.

You could then say "but this goes for all pacifists". No, it doesn't. A lot of people are pacifist because they don't see conflict as necessary and see weapons as a catalyst for conflict, but would defend themselves with weapons if their lives depended on it.

But what if you're like the Amish or Quakers and don't even believe in self defense?

Then good riddance.

get a job u fum fuk

So actively seek out and kill pacifists or just let them die?

Defend them if possible, let them die if needed.

mak them of catchrs ther own flys for dinner u fel me budy

yes we will overcome

i shootu pigu

Seems rather cold but fair enough

That's because AnCap's coopted the ideas of actual anarchists (and AnCap rhetoric sounds a lot like AnCom, when you get down to it). Both argue for a decentralised society where people organise and agree not to cause trouble, but the logical conclusion of AnCapism and the NAP is the protection of private property and a society of corporations.

That sounds pretty hollow. What's the contrary? Defending people if impossible? And 'needed'? It seems pretty hard to imagine a revolutionary situation where leaving the Quakers for dead is a necessity.

To be honest, I don't buy the ambivalence in general. In the end, communism means everyone needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning (or to stay in bed, fuck it). Without being crippled by exhaustion and structural violence, creative ethical and symbolic positions will probably proliferate and that's all to the good. I've known good comrades who are Quakers, sectarian Christians and stuff like that; and I don't like the idea of betraying them because they won't pick up a gun.

Yeah I don't see a reason to leave pacifists to their deaths

Statelessness doesn't imply a total lack of organisation, but rather it means that there is no alienated body of armed men positioned above society enforcing class rule via the defense of private property. There would still need to be an administration of things and processes to coordinate production, but this administration wouldn't exist to defend units of property on the part of property owners. The exact form that this administration takes is up for debate.

Once again, just because there's no institutions of class rule doesn't mean "assholes" can run around fucking shit up. In order for communist society to be created in the first place a "semi-state" would have had to have come into being. Presumable some vestige of it (probably a very casual workers militia) would remain in order to deal with elements that would seek to threaten communist society. In this context armed workers dealing with random psychopaths doesn't qualify as state power however, as A) it's no longer a tool for class rule as classes have been destroyed and property abolished, and B) it's not a separate institution presiding over society as our states are (military, police, courts, etc.), but simply the organised and armed masses protecting themselves directly.

Superabundance isn't really necessary for communism (certainly not the lower phase at any rate!). What would be necessary for the higher phase of communism would be for productive capacity to be great enough that what little human labour is required could be done voluntarily, or alternatively automation has progressed to such a point that there is no necessity for labour. Either way, it's not necessary (nor possible) to be able to produce an infinite amount of stuff.

If we're at a level of development that rewards are required (the lower phase of communism) then we'd probably have to use a kind of non-circulating money substitute (labour vouchers/credit - read Critique of the Gotha Program for information) that could be used to purchase consumer goods and services but couldn't be used to privately purchase labour power (and therefore couldn't facilitate capitalist production).

Good for you, I'm lazy too. That said spending all your time being a NEET is fucking miserable (not just because you're poor), if you spend enough time being a useless layabout you'll eventually desire to do something productive (I know from experience).

The point is that, the way I see it anyway, defeating an opposition should be a higher priority than defending those who do not WANT to contribute. And if defending them is strategically unsound then they're on their own. Btw, I'm not saying that all pacifists don't want to contribute or that literal violence is the only way to contribute. Pacifist who supports or wants to support a revolution? That's fine, help in any way you can. You're still an idiot for being a pacifist during an armed liberation. And if you stand by my side, face to face with an enemy and don't lift a finger because of your faggy principles I hope you get put up against the wall when it's all over.

Statelessness is not conceived as total disorganization… and LeftCom beat me to it:

If your test for a life worth saving is "is committed to the use of military force in the defence of communist revolution", you're going to be living in a severely depopulated socialist society, son

I don't think so. It seems to me that this kind of fanatical pacifism is pretty rare.

What? You're going to be in a room with a Quaker and a gun and if they don't kill a guy with it, you die and the revolution fails? Heroic dilemmas like this are narcissistic fantasies – revolution isn't about individual moral rectitude but class power – and you're going to make it into the principle of organised reprisals? Even Marx wrote about and admired "the magnanimity of the armed working men" in Paris. If the workers punish every act of violence they've suffered, even reluctant passivity, socialism would be worse than hell.

Then it won't sabotage the revolution, will it?

Sorry, guy, but I'm a vengeful person. If someone's pacifism increases the chances of me getting killed then I'd want to increase their chances of getting killed. Also, intentions matter. As in if it is their intention, based on religious or other such ideas, to actively not aid when enemies encroach then I see no problem with fucking them up afterwards.

So everyone who doesn't enlist in the People's Army (tm) loses their breathing muh privileges?

No, there are plenty of other roles to play in a conflict. But in case of heroic dilemma fantasy: breathing will be revoked.

Tell me, if it's the only way to win Revolution - at this specific moment - is it excusable to not use this measure?

I can't speak for the leftcom you're responding to, but I'm not a moralist: any action that results in the success of the revolution is acceptable in my opinion. However, shooting everyone that refuses to fight doesn't sound like a winning strategy to me, more like a way to alienate people that would have otherwise supported you. Not to mention even pacifists could have their uses.

Uselessly hypothetical question. You don't know if a Revolution's failed until it's failed, and Revolutions aren't won in a single "specific moment". Nobody gets to play the great tactical overseer on things like this. Moral dilemmas do not determine the course of history.

It isn't and I'm not suggesting it is. However, it is an important point.

It's a question of principle.

That doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want to and pretend that it doesn't change anything.

If Paris Commune had a bit more backbone and was not as retarded in enforcing voluntary approach, Thiers would've been crushed in Versailles and we would've had French Communist Republic in 1871.

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Communism is a purely utopian state. It is a vision of society that offers the best mankind has to offer to everyone. Nobody with a working brain has a realistic plan on how to organize such a society. It is supposed to be utopian, in the sense, to inspire people to work towards such ends.

Then why ~didn't~ they introduce conscription? Is it, perhaps, that the Parisian revolutionaries fought against the militarised imperial state? That they believed in the dignity of labour, not the discipline of soldiers? How would the National Guard have enforced conscription and fought off the Versailles government at the same time? How would Delescluze have forced troops who defected after fraternising with the Paris crowds to shoot at the same crowds if they wouldn't be herded into a conscripted army? A hypothetical question isn't one question; it's a ton of questions. There's always an alternative, even alternatives within alternatives.

But it does mean that upholding the principles of a revolution is more concrete and important than working up psychotic scenarios in which either the Quakers die or Porky wins.

With our very own militias, that work together and collectively have a lot of resources.

Town councils made up of the entire town if the entire town chooses to show up.

Automation, but also we've had enough to create communism in the west since the industrial revolution. Or at least socialism.

There may be rare luxuries. Maybe we can make enough tvs, cars, food, and houses for everyone but maybe we can't make ultra rare luxuries for everyone, maybe give people who do undesirable work a higher priority for rare luxuries.

What conscription? Even soldiers weren't forced to fight. Prince-Eugene Barracks, for example. It was considered amoral to force them to.

What are you talking about?

How will a militia fight a professional army? If there is no professional army socialism in one country is not possible. World wide revolution will never happen. Seems communism is impossible.

By having all the resources that those professional armies once had. All of that stuff has been collectivized you see, and is in use by the militias and communities (or simply in storage).

Unless you seem to think you need a revolution after we've already implemented global communism, which is what this is about, -after- we have a society, but, you knew it was about that and you're being silly for no reason.

No one has really answered OP's questions with any kind of satisfaction.

Unless there is one in the US.

Also the way the military was organized in the 19th century in America can serve as a way to organize the military in a stateless society.

Don't cut yourself on that edge

They have.

See:

If you won't take up arms to defend yourself, you'll get killed by people who will take up arms aggressively. You enable them, which makes pacifism strictly worse than self-defense if you wanna argue from a "moral" perspective.

No.

Only worthy answer ITT. Communism is a movement not a place.

Communism is global by definition, but a transition period isn't sustainable in one or just a few countries if it's not spreading elsewhere.

It's not unstructured, necessarily. The important point really is that people have input over what's produced in a way where everyone has the same say. People who aren't interested don't have to bother with understanding the logistics, they can just put in their voice for what they want. Structure is necessary, but the key is it doesn't have to be based on class. Bourgeois propaganda has associated structure, civilization, society, etc. with the specific class arrangement we have now.

It depends entirely on how the system is set up. If the system's code is known to the public, if its action logs are published, if the people maintaining the system are subject to recall by the people, it's not so much an authority as a system that functions while the people allow it to function.

No. The use value of a product isn't less if it was produced with less human labor. The point of LTV is that labor is needed to give a product value by transforming it from raw materials. I better exchange of labor time to use value is vastly preferable because it means less work is needed. This means that the value of any given time unit of labor will go up, since it takes less labor time to get the same use value.
The absence of work for a certain task will cause problems. People who give a shit (pun intended) will be able to pitch in themselves when the MoP are socialized instead of petitioning the people in power to do something. Under capitalism, treehuggers don't have the ability to arbitrarily add their labor power to cleanup jobs, because funding from property owners is missing from the equation. The willingness of muh job creators to fund a project is a limiting factor that disappears in socialism.

Currency probably still exists in a transition period. In full communism, we'd have reached post-scarcity and there'd be no need for currency because there's no scarcity and society is automated enough that there's no need for labor to have any more incentive than the satisfaction of doing the work.

OP here. I realize I'm on a chan and I can't expect rigorous, exhaustive answers. I appreciate the replies I've gotten so far.

If anyone knows of a more complete, existing description of stateless communism, let me know. It's my understanding that Marx was frustratingly vague, but I haven't read more than a fraction of his work.


It's right and good to strive for a perfect ideal, but if someone were seeking to draft me into a revolution, I'd want a picture of the desired end-state and a plan for how to achieve it before I'd agree to pull any hypothetical triggers.

Additionally, the idea that communism is only possible after the transitory socialist state controls the entire world and disarms every possible opposition group seems a little suspicious, if you don't mind me saying.

Is it fair to characterize this as a highly transparent federal democracy?

FWIW, I believe the open source movement has shown that software of the sort you describe is actually possible. (Not free of problems, but possible) People will absolutely devote effort and knowledge to solving software problems purely for the satisfaction of helping people and overcoming challenges, even in our current environment where it is against their economic interest to do so.

I thought I understood the basics of LTV before, but now I'm sure I don't. How does labor determine value if automation or other factors make some labor far more valuable?

Feel free to tell me to fuck off and read a book.

So, FALC or bust?

In a global society, both threats and logistics exist over a vast scale. A town council can't really sort out how to distribute microchips built in Malaysia to an assembly line in India. (Unless the town is where the microchips are built, in which case they would be inclined to follow their interests rather than distribute goods equitably)

In warfare, highly organized formations have a tendency to defeat those without a clear chain of command, even when inferior in total numbers and resources.

However, I concede that towns which have armed and fortified themselves could make themselves very difficult to conquer. We can look at the Pashtuns of Afghanistan to see how hardened it's possible to make a people, even with very little resources.

(Libertarians with no understanding of Afghanistan like to imagine that they'd make better insurgents than the Pashtuns, without seeming to realize that it's no mistake that the walls of their homes can resist a 20mm cannon.)

But was the American military actually very impressive? Because I heard the British were also fighting other wars, and was stretching itself thin.

Not really.

The US launched the War of 1812 because it sensed opportunity while Britain was busy with Napoleon, and it could have gone better.

Right, that's the counterargument I'm making to him, since that's the example he's citing.

I really don't see why communism is necessary. A Socialist country is good, in my opinion.

I think a good model was the US Army prior to 1945.

Basically, the US Army was divided into a small, permanent Regular Army, and the Army of the United States, which was an on-paper force until activated by the draft. The Regular Army did usual peacetime security/defense, but was sort of top-heavy in training, because in wartime, they would serve as the core of this much larger force which was rapidly built around them. George Patton, to use a popular example, was a Colonel in the Regular Army, and became a General in the Army of the United States as soon as mobilization began.

(Meanwhile, imperialist expeditions were mostly accomplished by the Marine Corps, which is a whole other topic)

Sadly, after WW2, the US decided to switch to a stance of permanent partial mobilization, giving us the force structure which we see today.

Yeah, we're literally an empire at this point. The maps with US military bases as dots are fucking horrifying.

Other militias that are all are organised together I guess.

If it only does one thing how could it be a state?

Proper use of resources. Ending disposable products that arent renewable or biodegradable. Also better management. Part of it would be ending manipulative advertising that makes people want things they dont need or really want. There is enough food on the planet for everyone but capitalism moves it from poor countries to rich ones and some governments forcibly destroy food to control market prices and a lot of food is wasted and thrown out from too much being produced at once.

Without money involved as long as a job isn't immoral it wont be seen as lowly. If there are some jobs no one will do someone will figure a way around it. In your septic tank example it would be some sort of biodegrading system or something.

When you say Socialist, are you referring to a centrally planned economy, or does that include regulated markets harnessed for the good of the population?

Personally, I consider the free market to be a dangerous beast with incredible innovative and productive potential. If you shoot yours in the head and plow your metaphorical field by hand, you'll inevitably fall behind nations which don't.


I'd say the US performs imperialist actions but is not technically an empire. Whatever; semantics.


It already is. Septic tanks use bacteria to break down waste. That's what they're for.

There's a lot of nasty, unglamorous, unpleasant jobs necessary to make society function, and you need to find SOME way to get people do them or else you've got a real fucking problem.

Same applies to glamorous but extremely difficult jobs, like doctors, which require very smart people to work extremely hard for years before they can even get started, currently incentivized with high pay and social respect.

I'm referring to workers owning the means of production.

Capitalism is always exploitative, regardless of whether it's regulated or not.

I agree, and am keen on learning about alternatives. But I'm also going to scrutinize those alternatives as hard as I can.

Are we talking, community collectives owning factories? Or a democratic state owning everything? Or something else?

It takes more than one thing to organize all that shit. You'd need, for instance, authority to tell factories what to do, and also authority to build new ones, to gather raw materials and coordinate labor between multiple communities for large projects, to organize and enforce units of measurement, standardization, quality assurance, interfaces between devices, railroad track widths, eminent domain to build roads, etc.

That's without even getting into things like defense, fire departments, law enforcement.

I agree with your sentiment.


Worker co-ops. Richard Wolff has talked extensively on this topic.

This is why socialism > communism

Communism itself IS socialist. Communism operates under a socialist economy. Seriously kys tankie. Or at least read a fucking book.

Not tankie at all

Communism is an ideal, with socialism as the transitional period

They have to be pumped empty once full though. I meant something that reduces it to nothing. Perhaps using it as an energy source.

Those different things dont have to be just one organisation. Authority would bee the wrong term, id go with something like guide.


All separate.

Which book or essay of his would you recommend most?

Depends on the execution. Anarchists aren't against organization (unless they're retards). We're against self-justifying hierarchies. If you have organization that's actually under control of the poeple, i.e. subject to recall by the people, then it's not what an anarchist would call a state. With a state, if people have a problem with the rules, cops get sent out to beat them or arrest them. Without a state, if they have a problem with the rules, the organization responds by changing the rules. That's an oversimplification but it gets to the main point. There are a lot of different ways that people theorize this will specifically happen.

Labor doesn't determine value per se. Labor transforms resources into product that has use value it would not have without labor. We could theoretically set up a system of self-replicating factories that make products without any human labor. At that point LTV becomes pretty meaningless. The point is that there exist raw material in the world that is not useful in itself but when transformed by labor it becomes something with use value. Labor has value in the sense that it can create use-value from otherwise useless raw materials over time. Automation and technology in general allow the value of labor to increase, which can mean more product (if demand isn't met yet, i.e. scarcity for that product exists) or less work (once demand is met), which an mean everyone works less (socialism/communism) or people get laid off and remaining workers provide more labor value for the same time and compensation (capitalism).

More realistically, FALC evenually (hopefully), many busts along the way. Busts are inherent to capitalism and there will likely be many failed attempts at socialism before capitalism falls. Assuming of course that the planet isn't destroyed by nukes or pollution first.

What would you like expanded upon? What aspect of my post do you believe to be based on faulty logic? Simply saying that the responses are unsatisfactory doesn't really give me much to work with.

Reminds me of high school English class

Kek. Yeah it seems to be a pretty typical, "I disagree with you therefore you are illogical" type argument. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt however, so if he genuinely wants something clarified I'd be happy to do so.