> I did answer it.
Several times, in a very multifaceted way, but never with a yes or no:
> The question "Will there be airplanes?" can't be answered
> definitively with "yes" or "no."
&
> In short, anarcho-syndicalism or simply syndicalism ("the
> industrial expression of anarchism" as Berkman called it), or
> the anarchism put into practice by Spanish workers in the 1930s,
> have posited that its very possible for complex, advanced industrial
> societies to be organized along anarchist lines.
&
> 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?). It would
> be in trying to make one's edict - "There shall be no airplanes"
> - the reality for everyone else, simply by decree. That is exactly
> elitism.
&
> My preference is that I would like to see airplanes, restaraunts,
> rock n roll, etc., in any future society, if they can be brought about
> sans coercion. That's my personal preference. And I would voice
> this individual personal preference in the collective decision
> making processes that regarded various aspects of these things. I
> could very well lose out and be out-voted, but who would I be to force
> my own desires on others?
Unknown, though it's possible, however it can't be determined here, but you would hope that planes won't be chucked.
Gordon Fitch writes:
> I don't understand, myself, how such a question is supposed
> to be answered.
If anarcho-syndicalism is compatible with an advanced society, the questoin should be redundant.
> Is there an implication here that coercion is necessary to
> accomplish projects over a certain size? If so, can it be
> made more explicit?
I think the implication is that anarchism has a tremendous difficulty responding to the complexities of the existing social order. The mere possibility of workers' councils (or whatever form and name they take) voting away a major portion of society's transportation infrastructure is too absurd to digest, and is fairly off-track as far as expropriating the expropriators is concerned.
-- Shane
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