"Anarchy Reigns in Social Production" re: unions

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Thu Aug 15 20:01:52 PDT 2002


Brian O. Sheppard x349393 writes:
> > No, deciding for oneself what modes of transportation would exist
> > for everyone else in a hypothetical society is more akin to
> > megalomania than elitism. The elitism isn't in answering the
> > question (By the way, where did I assert that it was?).

s-t-t at juno.com:
> If so, why do you refuse to answer it? Not with reading assignments or a
> change of subject, but with a direct answer.

I don't understand, myself, how such a question is supposed to be answered. I don't think there's any intrinsic limit to the complexity of self-organized systems, so I suppose it might be possible to build airplanes or large computers without using coercion on anyone. The question might be whether anyone would want to do it; if they did, I don't see what would stop them, assuming it wasn't necessary to use violence against non-participants to get the job done. We don't know, however. Similarly, should capitalism somehow last until the 22nd century without destroying with world, and should airplanes then be built; we don't know how _they_ would do it, either.

Is there an implication here that coercion is necessary to accomplish projects over a certain size? If so, can it be made more explicit?

-- Gordon



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