For the Commons

https://en.squat.net

The economic principle I’m exploring is “People generally respond to incentives in predictable ways” and “Institutions are the 'rules of the game' that influence choices.”

My research question to help me study the economic principle is “What kind of incentive structure would there be in a Libertarian Socialist society?”

The book published by Ardent Press titled “Anarchy Works” written by Peter Gelderloos demonstrates this economic principle because it argues that humans aren’t naturally selfish. Moreover, he argues that there are more incentives besides money for people to work. 

There is a lot about Anarchism in this book, but I am only going to discuss a few select sections that deal with the topic of interest. In chapter one, he discusses human nature. It’s a common view that humans are “naturally selfish” and must be incentivized by greed, but Gelderloos offers facts and examples to counteract that claim. Firstly, he states that “Currency-based economies have only existed a few thousand years, and capitalism has only been around a few hundred years.” He mentions the “gift economy” as a example of a pre-Capitalist economy. In a gift economy, “if people have more than they need of anything, they give it away. They don’t assign value, they don’t count debts. Everything you don’t use personally can be given as a gift to someone else, and by giving more gifts you inspire more generosity and strengthen the friendships that keep you swimming in gifts too.” He goes on to quote the zine “The Really Really Free Market: Instituting the Gift Economy” that describes a free market in North Carolina:

Two hundred or more people from all walks of life gather at the commons in the center of our town. They bring everything from jewelry to firewood to give away, and take whatever they want… Banners hang from branches and rafters proclaiming “FOR THE COMMONS, NOT LANDLORDS OR BUREAUCRACY” and “NI JEFES, NI FRONTERAS” and a king-size blanket is spread with radical reading material, but these aren’t essential to the event — this is a social institution, not a demonstration.

Moreover, he mentions the "traditional society of the Semai, in Malaya, [which] is based on gift-giving rather than bartering." These societies are proof that humans can function in a society based on altruism that lacks money, and there are countless other examples which the author goes on to describe.

Later in the book, in chapter three, Gelderloos discusses incentives specifically. He states that the “idea that without wages people would stop working is baseless” and that wages are a “recent invention yet societies have existed without currency or wages.” This is true, wages and Capitalism as a whole are fairly recent idea. I don’t see how one could argue that the only incentive to work is a wage, when wagedom is fairly new and societies have existed without wages prior to Capitalism. Some examples he gives for societies that functioned without wages are indigenous societies, Isreali kibbutzim, and social centers and squatted houses in Barcelona. All of these societies have functioned without wages. Indigenous societies had primary economic activities that are "all easily connected to common needs" so they had "no problem doing without wages." In kibbutz, there were "four major motivations to work within the cooperative labor teams, which lacked individual competition and profit motive: group productivity affects the whole community’s standard of living, so there is group pressure to work hard; members work where they choose, and gain satisfaction from their work; people develop a competitive pride if their branch of work does better than other branches; people gain prestige from work because labor is a cultural value." And in Barcelona, "as recently as 2008 there were over forty occupied social centers and at least two hundred squatted houses." These people use "consensus and group assemblies, and most are explicitly anarchist or intentionally anti-authoritarian." For the most part, "work and exchange have been abolished from these people’s lives."

These three examples prove that societies can function with alternative incentives to greed. There would be no lack of labor in an Anarchist or Libertarian Socialist society. We humans are good enough to function on our own without a feudal lord or master guiding our lives into their hands. The people in Barcelona have realized this, and if it weren't for "the police, in the end, preventing [Capitalism] from going extinct" they would have abolished Capitalism and moved onto a superior society, much like the whole of Catalonia attempted in 1936.

In my next blog post I will research: Economic incentives in Anarcho Communism.