Can someone explain to me the differences between mutualism and anarcho-communism...

Can someone explain to me the differences between mutualism and anarcho-communism. Because so far most of what I've read has left me to believe they are pretty similar. Also, would a true communist society flourish out of a violent revolution? Do you think it could occur as a natural part of human progression as technology advances and negates the necessity for more labor?

In communism you don't have to pay for things, in mutualism you have to.

so what makes mutualism any different from ancrap?

muh co-ops

Worker control of the MOP, no wage labor, no exploitation.

The economy is mostly 2 things: production and distribution.

Capitalism is production with private property and distribution via market.
Mutualism is public (as in controlled by the people) production and distribution via market.
Socialism is public production and distribution via planning.

Mutualism is coherent unlike anarcho-capitalism. Both are anarchist tendencies, but anarcho-capitalism would both have a hierarchy (capitalism) and be opposed to hierarchy (anarchy). Capitalism and statelessness are also incompatible because private property has to be defined and enforced by a state, otherwise capitalists would not agree on who owns what and have armed conflict to settle it, which would make the system feudalism by another name. Mutualism retains markets, but those are not inherently hierarchical. Markets do tend toward hierarchy over time though, because they tend toward monopoly.

Wait, if there is no wage labor under mutualism how do you pay for things?>>1705435

things are still produced for a market, everyone just has democratic control of their own workplace. Since things are being produced for a market, they are being sold, and then the people who produced them get what it was sold for, and then go use it to buy things.

They are both forms of libertarian socialism, the difference is of practical consideration rather than core values.

Mutualists believe in collectivized workplaces trading goods in markets, using currency (labor vouchers) representing time spent working.

Communists and syndicalists believe in distribution of resources through mutual aid.

I haven't read enough to say which is superior, but I don't really have any objection to markets as long as private ownership of the means of production is abolished.

They are both forms of anarcho-cuckoldism

you're one to talk, spooked faggot

there is no private property

OK you got me. I fucked that up.

This guy>>1705609 pretty much gets it but allow me to elaborate

There's a lot of variation in mutualist ideas and the word is typically used as a catch all term for stateless varieties of market socialism kind of like titoism is for statist market socialists.

Essentially what separates An-Coms and Mutualists in practice is the method by which goods and services are distributed through out the economy like my man above said.

An-Coms adhere to the principle of each according to their ability each according to their need. Mutualists believe in transactions which are legitimately mutually beneficial to all parties involved (not in the An-Cap sense of the word like "durr I can work 18 hours a day and make my boss rich for just enough to survive and it's mutually beneficial cuz I have the freedom to starve somewhere else if i don't like it)

Here's an example. Let's say I am a carpenter and you're a stone mason. I need you to make a pool in my backyard and you need me to remodel your kitchen. We both wish to trade with each other for our respective services but there is an issue; you as the stone mason are bringing more to the table than I am. Let's say it's going to require twice the resources to build the pool, whether it be twice the time, twice the intensity of labor, twice the raw materials or an amalgamation of all of these factors.

Now let's label this to make it simple in units of production. I am bringing 1up and you are providing 2up. This exchange is not mutually beneficial but let's say in addition to your kitchen being remodeled you also have a blown transmission in your car which needs to be fixed and will require 1up to change the transmission. I happen to have a friend who is an auto mechanic who also wants me to do some carpentry work for him but I don't need any of his services right now.

We all come together and work out the following arrangement; I provide 1up to you and 1up to my friend the mechanic, you provide 2up to me and my friend provides 1up to you. This means everyone received an equal amount of resources for the transaction and no surplus value has been extracted.

Now imagine this type of arrangement on a massive scale and that's what a Mutualist society would look like. A network of various laborers operating as either individuals or in a collective providing for one another.

Depends who you ask. Left-Rothbardians are the most far right Mutualists (they're still in the camp of the libertarian-left don't act like they're not) and typically believe in a resource based currency i.e. precious metals/energy source.

A more traditional Mutualist such as myself would advocate for a peer to peer exchange through their network of worker federations. Here's an example; You're a worker in an auto manufacturing union. When you sign up to go work you basically make a deal with your union where you list your needs and they calculate how much labor you need to provide to the network in order to have your needs satisfied.
So let's say you need housing for you and your wife and three kids plus cars for the members of your household who are driving and a truck for work and other basic needs such as healthcare, food, maintenance on your possessions etc. Because of these transactions being bare bones and direct with the other workers it would probably only take like 5-10 hours a week to get all of that.

When it comes to most services and goods it would work kind of like how health insurance works. You would probably have like a card or some type of account with your worker federation and have access to others who are in network and then receive and additional stipend of cash for out of network purchases. A lot of Mutualists believe in a fiat currency because a fiat currency would reflect the value of labor (correct me if I'm wrong but I think Marx said something similar in Das Kapital volume one) in a truly free market because fiat currencies are backed by the productivity of the participants and if productivity comes from labor power then it follows that fiat currency would represent that labor power. Some believe in resource based currency, others labor notes and others believe in the abolition of all currency and economies based solely on peer to peer exchange.

TL;DR
An-Com guiding principles each according to ability each according to need while Mutualists believe exchanges should be mutually beneficial.

What's the mutualist response to the Marxist critique that mutualist production and exchange still operates under the Law of Value (m-c-m') and the concept of self-exploitation? Does organization through the 'worker federations' you mention still preserve the firm?
I've never seen a cogent response outside of some mumbling about markets being more "practical" than planning, which of course isn't a response at all, rather a concession.

There was a massive thread on this earlier, don't have the link. Basically their conclusion was that mutualism is abstract capitalism, but thats a good thing. So mutualism = non statist succdem, basically

That's not a very satisfying response.

what firm?

elaborate pweez

The Firm as mode of organization, not any firm in particular. Is the Firm the atomized economic unit of production in this proposed federation?


Do you mean elaborate on what the law of value is? Or why I'm asking if the mutualist system he proposes operates under the law of value?
I could write up a basic line of thought, but I'm not in the mood to respond to the following (reasonable) inquiry and honestly I'm of the belief that in this case a half-explanation is worse than a whole one. If you want to get the basic understanding needed to be able to follow the argumentation then watch kapitalism101's youtube series on the law of value.

Depends what you mean by firm. I assume you mean in an ancappy sense of competing firms operating for profit which is not what I want.

I'm asking because I'm unfamiliar with mutualist anti-capital theory, not because I'm trying to catch you out.
I don't know what the firm has to do with ancaps, but yeah in the sense of firms competing in a market. I don't know how to word this differently without it turning into a billion words, is production done and organized through separate competing multi-personal 'legal' units? I was just asking because your example seemed pretty contrived when constructed as individuals producing goods for other individuals, production rarely actually relates like that.
Because if it's not the firm then what is it organized through? Is it completely individualized production where each individual owns their own MOP and the products they produce? That sounds completely ridiculous, but the alternative to the firm seems to me to be federalized/syndicalized collective production for use, in which case it's hard for me to describe which part exactly functions like a market, outside of maybe distributing in a higher degree based on input rather than need.

Since you didn't respond wrt the marxist critique I assume you don't have anything to comment? This is honestly mostly what I'm interested in.

I don't have an exhaustive understanding of the Marxist critique so I can't really comment.

That's fair.