Anarchism and its effects on consumption and entertainment

Submitted by edmund_the_destroyer in Anarchism (edited )

Zig just wrote an essay https://raddle.me/wiki/ziq_essays#burn-the-bread-book-industrial-communism-will-not-liberate

I have no major disagreement, just a minor one. "civilized anarcho-communists in big shiny cities who are accustomed to a litany of luxury consumer products being delivered to their doors everyday."

I think the drive to consume is innate, but capitalism dials it up. I buy a new well pump because the manufacturer found no profit in modular, repairable designs. I get a new computer because the old one is slow, and the old one is slow because the software industry finds no profit in efficient code and maintaining older products. I have a Netflix subscription to get video entertainment and a Pandora account to get music. I get takeout food because my bullshit job and my kids' 90% bullshit schooling and medical appointments and dental appointments and tax filing and paying bills and retirement investing and shopping for insurance and vehicle maintenance so we can travel to our bullshit jobs and schools all together eats into the time and energy I could spend cooking. And of course I'm bombarded with ads trying to foster a desire for junk I don't need.

Imagine a world with a 20 hour work week, access to efficient software people share freely that lets 20 year old computers and smart phones function just fine, access to freely shared media of all kinds and the free time to play your own musical instruments and stage your own plays and make your own art, and free time and free information to help you sew your own clothing and repair all of your own possessions. Imagine the free time to cook what you want at home. Would you spend time every week searching anarcho-Amazon.com for some new empty bauble to fill the void in your soul? I doubt it.

Now, I suspect Zig is right about what matters. I suspect dramatically reduced industrial consumption just postpones the desertification of Earth by a few years. The only solution is the complete end of industrial consumption.

So I guess I'm making an irrelevant distinction. But I think if a genie granted a wish for worldwide anarcho-communism tomorrow, the pace of consumption would decline by orders of magnitude entirely on its own.

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putridcod87 wrote

Imagine a world with a 20 hour work week

i'd rather not. thanks

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edmund_the_destroyer OP wrote

I mean 20 hours growing your own food, cooking your own meals, creating and maintaining your own clothing and tools, and so forth. Not 20 hours instead of 40 hours filling tax forms or selling plastic cups or delivering pizza.

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lastfutures wrote

Haven't read it yet, but that's a dope title haha

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black_fox wrote

worldwide anarcho-communism tomorrow, the pace of consumption would decline by orders of magnitude entirely on its own.

putting aside the likelihood of this on a worldwide scale. the answer is yes it would

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celebratedrecluse wrote

the pace of consumption would decline by orders of magnitude entirely on its own.

The state will not wither away

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jouissance wrote

It has time and time again. It already is withering away, on the margins.

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celebratedrecluse wrote (edited )

While a poetic statement, this has no basis or utility in the real world.

edit: to clarify, i am implying that the state (and captial) exist in dynamic equilibrium; that is, they are constantly destroying and creating themselves, such that "ebb and flow" is usually not net, only gross.

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RichOldWhiteMan wrote

Lolz

I'd be fascinated to know how you view the current world and come to the conclusion that the state is withering away

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jouissance wrote

It's shit I fill my head with so that I can delude myself into finding reasons to not kill myself. The world is suffocating me and I can't find any light left in it anymore.

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