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Potkea wrote

Reply to comment by ziq in Critiquing "Burn The Breadbook" by ziq

FWIW, AnComs like Berkman said that rationing would precede full communism.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism#toc31

Let us take up the organization of consumption first, because people have to eat before they can work and produce.

”What do you mean by the organization of consumption?” your friend asks.

“He means rationing, I suppose,” you remark.

I do. Of course, when the social revolution has become thoroughly organized and production is functioning normally there will be enough for everybody. But in the first stages of the revolution, during the process of reconstruction, we must take care to supply the people as best we can, and equally, which means rationing.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

That's logical, but the part I think has become outdated is "when the social revolution has become thoroughly organized and production is functioning normally there will be enough for everybody". For several reasons.

First, there's nothing regenerative or sustainable about the social revolution ancommunism provides a blueprint for, so there really won't be enough for everyone if society continues to revolve around the factory and dividing the spoils of industry, whether equally or unequally.

Even the rationing point, though completely logical... asking billions of people to sacrifice what they're used to and do with less than they had under capitalism isn't going to go well. Note that revolution always happens because people want more than what their rulers are giving them. So Berkman telling people to expect rationing post-revolution isn't going to get them to support his revolution.

You can see how people freak out when the monetary costs of extractivism become unsustainable and people are asked to tighten their belts - see the streets of Kazahkstan right now because fuel prices went up. Or even the bread lines in Turkey.

People at large consider it a failed system the moment scarcity rears its ugly head, and they revolt, demanding a return to the luxury afforded to them in the past, however destructive and unsustainable it was.

The only reason people don't experience scarcity in the West right now is because of rampant and heavily-subsidized extractivism (enabled by imperialism) - something with a clear end date that's set in stone as soon as the oil wells and coal mines run dry.

So the way forward, for me, isn't to create more equality in the extract/manufacture/distribute processes, it's to reject the entire idea of an extractive society and all the authority it brings. Something that the vast majority of people in civilization will never accept because they don't want to go without or even with less. The whole point of communism, even according to Berkman's post-rationing society, is for people to have more luxury than they have now. Not less.

Even knowing everything outside the cities is on fire, most people refuse to give an inch of what they've fought for in this world.

So knowing what's necessary to end ecocide won't happen because it would be deeply unpopular in a society accustomed to extracting millions of years worth of resources in a few decades, the only anarchy left, for me, is nihilism. I know what's coming (well, it's already here in my country) and I know there's no way to avoid it.

Pockets of anarchy will be found in the ashes because there's always anarchy somewhere.

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