Milton the Anarchist Re: "post-leftism"

Brian O. Sheppard x349393 bsheppard at bari.iww.org
Mon Aug 19 16:35:44 PDT 2002


On Mon, 19 Aug 2002 JCWisc at aol.com wrote:


> Airplanes? Forget airplanes. How about steel plowshares,
> reapers, drill presses, lathes, transistor radios, sewing machines, tractors,
> vaccines, clocks? In answer to the question of whether any of these things
> will exist in the future anarchist utopia, it appears that two basic answers
> have been forthcoming: No, and Maybe. Plus we'll have to somehow
> non-coercively disperse the population. I'm glad we clarified that. I agree
> with Doug on this one. "Nein, danke. Next Utopia please."

So that's your answer as to whether objects (airplanes only being one example out of many) should be made coercively or not? "Next Utopia, please"? It's a serious issue. Coercion doesn't involve merely shooting people. I, for one, was discussing the coercion of wage slavery, not armed militias forcing people to make airplanes. Why is it utopian to ask hard questions like this? It's practical, if anything is.

As for the "maybe" answer, it's bit more complex than that. As Yoshie said, decisions like this - "the particulars of society" (viz. airplanes, restaurants, food stores, etc.) - should be decided democratically. Not ceorcively. Is that "Utopian"? Sheesh.

Brian



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