Anarcho-communism (also known as anarchist
communism, free communism, stateless communism,
libertarian communism and communist anarchism)
is a political philosophy and anarchist school
of thought which advocates the abolition of
the state, capitalism, wage labour and private
property (while retaining respect for personal
property, along with collectively-owned items,
goods and services) in favor of common ownership
of the means of production, direct democracy
(among communes, participatory democracy),
cooperativism, equal distribution of valuables,
and a horizontal network of workers' councils
with production and consumption based on the
guiding principle: "From each according to
his ability, to each according to his needs".Some
forms of anarchist communism, such as insurrectionary
anarchism, are strongly influenced by egoism
and radical individualism, believing anarcho-communism
is the best social system for the realization
of individual freedom.
Most anarcho-communists view anarcho-communism
as a way of reconciling the opposition between
the individual and society.Anarcho-communism
developed out of radical socialist currents
after the French Revolution, but was first
formulated as such in the Italian section
of the First International.
The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin took
importance later as it expanded and developed
pro-organizationalist and insurrectionary
anti-organizationalist sections.
To date, the best-known examples of an anarchist
communist society (i.e. established around
the ideas as they exist today and achieving
worldwide attention and knowledge in the historical
canon) are the anarchist territories during
the Spanish Revolution and the Free Territory
during the Russian Revolution.
Through the efforts and influence of the Spanish
anarchists during the Spanish Revolution within
the Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936 anarchist
communism existed in most of Aragon, parts
of the Levante and Andalusia as well as in
the stronghold of anarchist Catalonia before
being crushed by the combined forces of the
regime that won the war, Adolf Hitler, Benito
Mussolini, Spanish Communist Party repression
(backed by the Soviet Union) as well as economic
and armaments blockades from the capitalist
countries and the Spanish Republic itself.
During the Russian Revolution, anarchists
such as Nestor Makhno worked to create and
defend—through the Revolutionary Insurrectionary
Army of Ukraine—anarchist communism in the
Free Territory of the Ukraine from 1919 before
being conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1921.
== History ==
=== 
Early precursors ===
Anarchist communist currents appeared during
the English Civil War and the French Revolution
of the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively.
Gerrard Winstanley, who was part of the radical
Diggers movement in England, wrote in his
1649 pamphlet, The New Law of Righteousness,
that there "shall be no buying or selling,
no fairs nor markets, but the whole earth
shall be a common treasury for every man,"
and "there shall be none Lord over others,
but every one shall be a Lord of himself".The
Diggers themselves resisted tyranny of the
ruling class and of kings, instead operating
in a cooperative fashion in order to get work
done, manage supplies, and increase economic
productivity.
Due to the communes established by the Diggers
being free from private property, along with
economic exchange (as all items, goods and
services were held collectively), their communes
could be called early, functioning communist
societies, spread out across the rural lands
of England.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, common
ownership of land and property was much more
prevalent across the European continent, but
the Diggers were set apart by their struggle
against monarchical rule.
They sprung up by means of workers' self-management
after the fall of Charles I.
In 1703, Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan wrote
the novel New Voyages to North America where
he outlined how indigenous communities of
the North American continent cooperated and
organised.
The author found the agrarian societies and
communities of pre-colonial North America
to be nothing like the monarchical, unequal
states of Europe, both in their economic structure
and lack of any state.
He wrote that the life natives lived was "anarchy",
this being the first usage of the term to
mean something other than chaos.
He wrote that there were no priests, courts,
laws, police, ministers of state, and no distinction
of property, no way to differentiate rich
from poor, as they were all equal and thriving
cooperatively.During the French Revolution,
Sylvain Maréchal, in his Manifesto of the
Equals (1796), demanded "the communal enjoyment
of the fruits of the earth" and looked forward
to the disappearance of "the revolting distinction
of rich and poor, of great and small, of masters
and valets, of governors and governed".
Maréchal was critical not only of the unequal
distribution of property, but how religion
would often be used to justify evangelical
immorality.
He viewed the link between religion and what
later came to be known as capitalism (though
not in his time) as two sides of the same
corrupted coin.
He had once said, "Do not be afraid of your
God - be afraid of yourself.
You are the creator of your own troubles and
joys.
Heaven and hell are in your own soul".
Sylvain Maréchal was personally involved
with the Conspiracy of the Equals, a failed
attempt at overthrowing the monarchy of France
and establishing a stateless, agrarian socialist
utopia.
He worked with Gracchus Babeuf in not only
writing about what an anarchist country might
look like, but how it will be achieved.
The two of them were friends, though didn't
always see eye to eye, particularly with Maréchal's
statement on equality being more important
than the arts.
=== Joseph Déjacque and the Revolutions of
1848 ===
An early anarchist communist was Joseph Déjacque,
the first person to describe himself as "libertarian".
Unlike Proudhon, he argued that, "it is not
the product of his or her labor that the worker
has a right to, but to the satisfaction of
his or her needs, whatever may be their nature".
According to the anarchist historian Max Nettlau,
the first use of the term libertarian communism
was in November 1880, when a French anarchist
congress employed it to more clearly identify
its doctrines.
The French anarchist journalist Sébastien
Faure, later founder and editor of the four-volume
Anarchist Encyclopedia, started the weekly
paper Le Libertaire (The Libertarian) in 1895.Déjacque
"rejected Blanquism, which was based on a
division between the 'disciples of the great
people's Architect' and 'the people, or vulgar
herd,' and was equally opposed to all the
variants of social republicanism, to the dictatorship
of one man and to 'the dictatorship of the
little prodigies of the proletariat.'
With regard to the last of these, he wrote
that: 'a dictatorial committee composed of
workers is certainly the most conceited and
incompetent, and hence the most anti-revolutionary,
thing that can be found [...] (It is better
to have doubtful enemies in power than dubious
friends)'.
He saw 'anarchic initiative,' 'reasoned will'
and 'the autonomy of each' as the conditions
for the social revolution of the proletariat,
the first expression of which had been the
barricades of June 1848 (see Revolutions of
1848).
In Déjacque's view, a government resulting
from an insurrection remains a reactionary
fetter on the free initiative of the proletariat.
Or rather, such free initiative can only arise
and develop by the masses ridding themselves
of the 'authoritarian prejudices' by means
of which the state reproduces itself in its
primary function of representation and delegation.
Déjacque wrote that: 'By government I understand
all delegation, all power outside the people,'
for which must be substituted, in a process
whereby politics is transcended, the 'people
in direct possession of their sovereignty,'
or the 'organised commune.'
For Déjacque, the communist anarchist utopia
would fulfil the function of inciting each
proletarian to explore his or her own human
potentialities, in addition to correcting
the ignorance of the proletarians concerning
'social science.'"
=== 
The International Workingmen's Association
===
The collectivist anarchists advocated remuneration
for the type and amount of labor adhering
to the principle "to each according to deeds";
but held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary
transition to a communist system of distribution
according to need.
As Mikhail Bakunin's associate, James Guillaume,
put it in his essay, Ideas on Social Organization
(1876): "When [...] production comes to outstrip
consumption ... everyone will draw what he
needs from the abundant social reserve of
commodities, without fear of depletion; and
the moral sentiment which will be more highly
developed among free and equal workers will
prevent, or greatly reduce, abuse and waste."Anarchist
communism as a coherent, modern economic-political
philosophy was first formulated in the Italian
section of the First International by Carlo
Cafiero, Emilio Covelli, Errico Malatesta,
Andrea Costa and other ex Mazzinian Republicans.
The collectivist anarchists sought to collectivize
ownership of the means of production while
retaining payment proportional to the amount
and kind of labor of each individual, but
the anarcho-communists sought to extend the
concept of collective ownership to the products
of labor as well.
While both groups argued against capitalism,
the anarchist communists departed from Proudhon
and Bakunin, who maintained that individuals
have a right to the product of their individual
labor and to be remunerated for their particular
contribution to production.
But, Errico Malatesta stated that "instead
of running the risk of making a confusion
in trying to distinguish what you and I each
do, let us all work and put everything in
common.
In this way each will give to society all
that his strength permits until enough is
produced for every one; and each will take
all that he needs, limiting his needs only
in those things of which there is not yet
plenty for every one".
Cafiero explains in Anarchy and Communism
(1880) that private property in the product
of labor will lead to unequal accumulation
of capital and therefore the reappearance
of social classes and their antagonisms; and
thus the resurrection of the state: "If we
preserve the individual appropriation of the
products of labour, we would be forced to
preserve money, leaving more or less accumulation
of wealth according to more or less merit
rather than need of individuals".
At the Florence Conference of the Italian
Federation of the International in 1876, held
in a forest outside Florence due to police
activity, they declared the principles of
anarcho-communism, beginning with: The Italian
Federation considers the collective property
of the products of labour as the necessary
complement to the collectivist programme,
the aid of all for the satisfaction of the
needs of each being the only rule of production
and consumption which corresponds to the principle
of solidarity.
The federal congress at Florence has eloquently
demonstrated the opinion of the Italian International
on this point...
The above report was made in an article by
Malatesta and Cafiero in the Swiss Jura Federation's
bulletin later that year.
=== Peter Kropotkin ===
Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), often seen
as the most important theorist of anarchist
communism, outlined his economic ideas in
The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories
and Workshops.
Kropotkin felt that cooperation is more beneficial
than competition, arguing in his major scientific
work Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution that
this was well-illustrated in nature.
He advocated the abolition of private property
(while retaining respect for personal property)
through the "expropriation of the whole of
social wealth" by the people themselves, and
for the economy to be co-ordinated through
a horizontal network of voluntary associations
where goods are distributed according to the
physical needs of the individual, rather than
according to labor.
He further argued that these "needs," as society
progressed, would not merely be physical needs
but "[a]s soon as his material wants are satisfied,
other needs, of an artistic character, will
thrust themselves forward the more ardently.
Aims of life vary with each and every individual;
and the more society is civilized, the more
will individuality be developed, and the more
will desires be varied."
He maintained that in anarcho-communism "houses,
fields, and factories will no longer be private
property, and that they will belong to the
commune or the nation and money, wages, and
trade would be abolished".
Individuals and groups would use and control
whatever resources they needed, as the aim
of anarchist communism was to place "the product
reaped or manufactured at the disposal of
all, leaving to each the liberty to consume
them as he pleases in his own home".
He supported the expropriation of private
property into the commons or public goods
(while retaining respect for personal property)
to ensure that everyone would have access
to what they needed without being forced to
sell their labour to get it: We do not want
to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to
give to the workers all those things the lack
of which makes them fall an easy prey to the
exploiter, and we will do our utmost that
none shall lack aught, that not a single man
shall be forced to sell the strength of his
right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for
himself and his babes.
This is what we mean when we talk of Expropriation...
He said that a "peasant who is in possession
of just the amount of land he can cultivate"
and "a family inhabiting a house which affords
them just enough space [...] considered necessary
for that number of people" and the artisan
"working with their own tools or handloom"
would not be interfered with, arguing that
"[t]he landlord owes his riches to the poverty
of the peasants, and the wealth of the capitalist
comes from the same source".
In summation, Kropotkin described an anarchist
communist economy as functioning like this:
Imagine a society, comprising a few million
inhabitants, engaged in agriculture and a
great variety of industries—Paris, for example,
with the Department of Seine-et-Oise.
Suppose that in this society all children
learn to work with their hands as well as
with their brains.
Admit that all adults... bind themselves to
work 5 hours a day from the age of twenty
or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and
that they follow occupations they have chosen
in any one branch of human work considered
necessary.
Such a society could in return guarantee well-being
to all its members; that is to say, a more
substantial well-being than that enjoyed to-day
by the middle classes.
And, moreover, each worker belonging to this
society would have at his disposal at least
5 hours a day which he could devote to science,
art, and individual needs which do not come
under the category of necessities, but will
probably do so later on, when man's productivity
will have augmented, and those objects will
no longer appear luxurious or inaccessible.
=== Organizationalism vs. insurrectionarism
and expansion ===
In 1876, at the Berne conference of the International
Workingmen's Association, the Italian anarchist
Errico Malatesta argued that the revolution
"consists more of deeds than words", and that
action was the most effective form of propaganda.
In the bulletin of the Jura Federation he
declared "the Italian federation believes
that the insurrectional fact, destined to
affirm socialist principles by deed, is the
most efficacious means of propaganda".As anarcho-communism
emerged in the mid-19th century it had an
intense debate with Bakuninist collectivism
and as such within the anarchist movement
over participation in syndicalism and the
workers movement as well as on other issues.
So "In the theory of the revolution" of anarcho-communism
as elaborated by Peter Kropotkin and others
"it is the risen people who are the real agent
and not the working class organised in the
enterprise (the cells of the capitalist mode
of production) and seeking to assert itself
as labour power, as a more 'rational' industrial
body or social brain (manager) than the employers".
So "between 1880 and 1890" with the "perspective
of an immanent revolution", who was "opposed
to the official workers' movement, which was
then in the process of formation (general
Social Democratisation).
They were opposed not only to political (statist)
struggles but also to strikes which put forward
wage or other claims, or which were organised
by trade unions."
But "While they were not opposed to strikes
as such, they were opposed to trade unions
and the struggle for the eight-hour day.
This anti-reformist tendency was accompanied
by an anti-organisational tendency, and its
partisans declared themselves in favour of
agitation amongst the unemployed for the expropriation
of foodstuffs and other articles, for the
expropriatory strike and, in some cases, for
'individual recuperation' or acts of terrorism."Even
after Peter Kropotkin and others overcame
their initial reservations and decided to
enter labor unions, there remained "the anti-syndicalist
anarchist-communists, who in France were grouped
around Sebastien Faure's Le Libertaire.
From 1905 onwards, the Russian counterparts
of these anti-syndicalist anarchist-communists
become partisans of economic terrorism and
illegal 'expropriations'."
Illegalism as a practice emerged and within
it "[t]he acts of the anarchist bombers and
assassins ("propaganda by the deed") and the
anarchist burglars ("individual reappropriation")
expressed their desperation and their personal,
violent rejection of an intolerable society.
Moreover, they were clearly meant to be exemplary,
invitations to revolt."Proponents and activists
of these tactics among others included Johann
Most, Luigi Galleani, Victor Serge, Giuseppe
Ciancabilla, and Severino Di Giovanni.
The Italian Giuseppe Ciancabilla (1872–1904)
wrote in "Against organization" that "we don't
want tactical programs, and consequently we
don't want organization.
Having established the aim, the goal to which
we hold, we leave every anarchist free to
choose from the means that his sense, his
education, his temperament, his fighting spirit
suggest to him as best.
We don't form fixed programs and we don't
form small or great parties.
But we come together spontaneously, and not
with permanent criteria, according to momentary
affinities for a specific purpose, and we
constantly change these groups as soon as
the purpose for which we had associated ceases
to be, and other aims and needs arise and
develop in us and push us to seek new collaborators,
people who think as we do in the specific
circumstance."By the 1880s, anarcho-communism
was already present in the United States as
can be seen in the publication of the journal
Freedom: A Revolutionary Anarchist-Communist
Monthly by Lucy Parsons and Lizzy Holmes.
Lucy Parsons debated in her time in the US
with fellow anarcho-communist Emma Goldman
over issues of free love and feminism.
Another anarcho-communist journal later appeared
in the US called The Firebrand.
Most anarchist publications in the US were
in Yiddish, German, or Russian, but Free Society
was published in English, permitting the dissemination
of anarchist communist thought to English-speaking
populations in the US.
Around that time these American anarcho-communist
sectors entered in debate with the individualist
anarchist group around Benjamin Tucker.
In February 1888 Berkman left for the United
States from his native Russia.
Soon after his arrival in New York City, Berkman
became an anarchist through his involvement
with groups that had formed to campaign to
free the men convicted of the 1886 Haymarket
bombing.
He as well as Emma Goldman soon came under
the influence of Johann Most, the best-known
anarchist in the United States; and an advocate
of propaganda of the deed—attentat, or violence
carried out to encourage the masses to revolt.
Berkman became a typesetter for Most's newspaper
Freiheit.According to anarchist historian
Max Nettlau, the first use of the term "libertarian
communism" was in November 1880, when a French
anarchist congress employed it to more clearly
identify its doctrines.
The French anarchist journalist Sébastien
Faure started the weekly paper Le Libertaire
(The Libertarian) in 1895.
=== Methods of Organising: Platformism vs
Synthesism ===
In Ukraine the anarcho-communist guerrilla
leader Nestor Makhno led an independent anarchist
army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War.
A commander of the peasant Revolutionary Insurrectionary
Army of Ukraine, also known as the Anarchist
Black Army, Makhno led a guerrilla campaign
opposing both the Bolshevik "Reds" and monarchist
"Whites".
The revolutionary autonomous movement of which
he was a part made various tactical military
pacts while fighting various forces of reaction
and organizing the Free Territory of Ukraine,
an anarchist society, committed to resisting
state authority, whether capitalist or Bolshevik.
After successfully repelling Austro-Hungarian,
White, and Ukrainian Nationalist forces, the
Makhnovists militia forces and anarchist communist
territories in the Ukraine were eventually
crushed by Bolshevik military forces.
In the Mexican Revolution the Mexican Liberal
Party was established and during the early
1910s it led a series of military offensives
leading to the conquest and occupation of
certain towns and districts in Baja California
with the leadership of anarcho-communist Ricardo
Flores Magón.
Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread, which Flores
Magón considered a kind of anarchist bible,
served as basis for the short-lived revolutionary
communes in Baja California during the "Magónista"
Revolt of 1911 During the Mexican Revolution
Emiliano Zapata and his army and allies, including
Pancho Villa, fought for agrarian reform in
Mexico.
Specifically, they wanted to establish communal
land rights for Mexico's indigenous population,
which had mostly lost its land to the wealthy
elite of European descent.
Zapata was partly influenced by Ricardo Flores
Magón.
The influence of Flores Magón on Zapata can
be seen in the Zapatistas' Plan de Ayala,
but even more noticeably in their slogan (this
slogan was never used by Zapata) "Tierra y
libertad" or "land and liberty", the title
and maxim of Flores Magón's most famous work.
Zapata's introduction to anarchism came via
a local schoolteacher, Otilio Montaño Sánchez
– later a general in Zapata's army, executed
on May 17, 1917 – who exposed Zapata to
the works of Peter Kropotkin and Flores Magón
at the same time as Zapata was observing and
beginning to participate in the struggles
of the peasants for the land.
A group of exiled Russian anarchists attempted
to address and explain the anarchist movement's
failures during the Russian Revolution.
They wrote the Organizational Platform of
the General Union of Anarchists which was
written in 1926 by Dielo Truda ("Workers'
Cause").
The pamphlet is an analysis of the basic anarchist
beliefs, a vision of an anarchist society,
and recommendations as to how an anarchist
organization should be structured.
The four main principles by which an anarchist
organization should operate, according to
the Platform, are ideological unity, tactical
unity, collective action, and federalism.
The platform argues that "We have vital need
of an organization which, having attracted
most of the participants in the anarchist
movement, would establish a common tactical
and political line for anarchism and thereby
serve as a guide for the whole movement".
The Platform attracted strong criticism from
many sectors on the anarchist movement of
the time including some of the most influential
anarchists such as Voline, Errico Malatesta,
Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, Max Nettlau,
Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman and Gregori
Maximoff.
Malatesta, after initially opposing the Platform,
later came to agreement with the Platform
confirming that the original difference of
opinion was due to linguistic confusion: "I
find myself more or less in agreement with
their way of conceiving the anarchist organisation
(being very far from the authoritarian spirit
which the "Platform" seemed to reveal) and
I confirm my belief that behind the linguistic
differences really lie identical positions."
Two texts were made by the anarchist communists
Sébastien Faure and Volin as responses to
the Platform, each proposing different models,
are the basis for what became known as the
organisation of synthesis, or simply "synthesism".
Voline published in 1924 a paper calling for
"the anarchist synthesis" and was also the
author of the article in Sébastien Faure's
Encyclopedie Anarchiste on the same topic.
The main purpose behind the synthesis was
that the anarchist movement in most countries
was divided into three main tendencies: communist
anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualist
anarchism and so such an organization could
contain anarchists of this 3 tendencies very
well.
Faure in his text "Anarchist synthesis" has
the view that "these currents were not contradictory
but complementary, each having a role within
anarchism: anarcho-syndicalism as the strength
of the mass organisations and the best way
for the practice of anarchism; libertarian
communism as a proposed future society based
on the distribution of the fruits of labour
according to the needs of each one; anarcho-individualism
as a negation of oppression and affirming
the individual right to development of the
individual, seeking to please them in every
way.
The Dielo Truda platform in Spain also met
with strong criticism.
Miguel Jimenez, a founding member of the Iberian
Anarchist Federation (FAI), summarized this
as follows: too much influence in it of marxism,
it erroneously divided and reduced anarchists
between individualist anarchists and anarcho-communist
sections, and it wanted to unify the anarchist
movement along the lines of the anarcho-communists.
He saw anarchism as more complex than that,
that anarchist tendencies are not mutually
exclusive as the platformists saw it and that
both individualist and communist views could
accommodate anarchosyndicalism.
Sébastian Faure had strong contacts in Spain
and so his proposal had more impact in Spanish
anarchists than the Dielo Truda platform even
though individualist anarchist influence in
Spain was less strong than it was in France.
The main goal there was conciling anarcho-communism
with anarcho-syndicalism.Gruppo Comunista
Anarchico di Firenze held that the during
early twentieth century, the terms libertarian
communism and anarchist communism became synonymous
within the international anarchist movement
as a result of the close connection they had
in Spain (see Anarchism in Spain) (with libertarian
communism becoming the prevalent term).
=== The Spanish Revolution ===
The most extensive application of anarcho-communist
ideas (i.e., established around the ideas
as they exist today and achieving worldwide
attention and knowledge in the historical
canon), happened in the anarchist territories
during the Spanish Revolution In Spain, the
national anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación
Nacional del Trabajo initially refused to
join a popular front electoral alliance, and
abstention by CNT supporters led to a right
wing election victory.
In 1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist
votes helped bring the popular front back
to power.
Months later, the former ruling class responded
with an attempted coup causing the Spanish
Civil War (1936–1939).
In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired
movement of peasants and workers, supported
by armed militias, took control of Barcelona
and of large areas of rural Spain where they
collectivised the land.
But even before the fascist victory in 1939,
the anarchists were losing ground in a bitter
struggle with the Stalinists, who controlled
the distribution of military aid to the Republican
cause from the Soviet Union.
The events known as the Spanish Revolution
was a workers' social revolution that began
during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
in 1936 and resulted in the widespread implementation
of anarchist and more broadly libertarian
socialist organizational principles throughout
various portions of the country for two to
three years, primarily Catalonia, Aragon,
Andalusia, and parts of the Levante.
Much of Spain's economy was put under worker
control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia,
the figure was as high as 75%, but lower in
areas with heavy Communist Party of Spain
influence, as the Soviet-allied party actively
resisted attempts at collectivization enactment.
Factories were run through worker committees,
agrarian areas became collectivised and run
as libertarian communes.
Anarchist historian Sam Dolgoff estimated
that about eight million people participated
directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish
Revolution, which he claimed "came closer
to realizing the ideal of the free stateless
society on a vast scale than any other revolution
in history".
Stalinist-led troops suppressed the collectives
and persecuted both dissident Marxists and
anarchists.
=== Post-war years ===
Anarcho-communism entered into internal debates
once again over the issue of organization
in the post-World War II era.
Founded in October 1935 the Anarcho-Communist
Federation of Argentina (FACA, Federación
Anarco-Comunista Argentina) in 1955 renamed
itself as the Argentine Libertarian Federation.
The Fédération Anarchiste (FA) was founded
in Paris on December 2, 1945, and elected
the platformist anarcho-communist George Fontenis
as its first secretary the next year.
It was composed of a majority of activists
from the former FA (which supported Voline's
Synthesis) and some members of the former
Union Anarchiste, which supported the CNT-FAI
support to the Republican government during
the Spanish Civil War, as well as some young
Resistants.
On 1950 a clandestin group formed within the
FA called Organisation Pensée Bataille (OPB)
led by George Fontenis.
The Manifesto of Libertarian Communism was
written in 1953 by Georges Fontenis for the
Federation Communiste Libertaire of France.
It is one of the key texts of the anarchist-communist
current known as platformism.
The OPB pushed for a move which saw the FA
change its name into the Fédération Communiste
Libertaire (FCL) after the 1953 Congress in
Paris, while an article in Le Libertaire indicated
the end of the cooperation with the French
Surrealist Group led by André Breton.
The new decision making process was founded
on unanimity: each person has a right of veto
on the orientations of the federation.
The FCL published the same year the Manifeste
du communisme libertaire.
Several groups quit the FCL in December 1955,
disagreeing with the decision to present "revolutionary
candidates" to the legislative elections.
On August 15–20, 1954, the Ve intercontinental
plenum of the CNT took place.
A group called Entente anarchiste appeared
which was formed of militants who didn't like
the new ideological orientation that the OPB
was giving the FCL seeing it was authoritarian
and almost marxist.
The FCL lasted until 1956 just after it participated
in state legislative elections with 10 candidates.
This move alienated some members of the FCL
and thus produced the end of the organization.
A group of militants who didn't agree with
the FA turning into FCL reorganized a new
Federation Anarchiste which was established
on December, 1953.
This included those who formed L'Entente anarchiste
who joined the new FA and then dissolved L'Entente.
The new base principles of the FA were written
by the individualist anarchist Charles-Auguste
Bontemps and the non-platformist anarcho-communist
Maurice Joyeux which established an organization
with a plurality of tendencies and autonomy
of groups organized around synthesist principles.
According to historian Cédric Guérin, "the
unconditional rejection of Marxism became
from that moment onwards an identity element
of the new Federation Anarchiste" and this
was motivated in a big part after the previous
conflict with George Fontenis and his OPB.In
Italy the Italian Anarchist Federation was
founded in 1945 in Carrara.
It adopted an "Associative Pact" and the "Anarchist
Program" of Errico Malatesta.
It decided to publish the weekly Umanità
Nova retaking the name of the journal published
by Errico Malatesta.
Inside the FAI, the Anarchist Groups of Proletarian
Action (GAAP) was founded, led by Pier Carlo
Masini, which "proposed a Libertarian Party
with an anarchist theory and practice adapted
to the new economic, political and social
reality of post-war Italy, with an internationalist
outlook and effective presence in the workplaces
[...] The GAAP allied themselves with the
similar development within the French Anarchist
movement" as led by George Fontenis.
Another tendency which didn't identify either
with the more classical FAI or with the GAAP
started to emerge as local groups.
These groups emphasized direct action, informal
affinity groups and expropriation for financing
anarchist activity.
From within these groups the influential insurrectionary
anarchist Alfredo Maria Bonanno will emerge
influenced by the practice of the Spanish
exiled anarchist José Lluis Facerías.
In the early seventies a platformist tendency
emerged within the Italian Anarchist Federation
which argued for more strategic coherence
and social insertion in the workers movement
while rejecting the syntesist "Associative
Pact" of Malatesta which the FAI adhered to.
These groups started organizing themselves
outside the FAI in organizations such as O.R.A.
from Liguria which organized a Congress attended
by 250 delegates of grupos from 60 locations.
This movement was influential in the autonomia
movements of the seventies.
They published Fronte Libertario della lotta
di classe in Bologna and Comunismo libertario
from Modena.
The Federation of Anarchist Communists (Federazione
dei Comunisti Anarchici), or FdCA, was established
in 1985 in Italy from the fusion of the Organizzazione
Rivoluzionaria Anarchica (Revolutionary Anarchist
Organisation) and the Unione dei Comunisti
Anarchici della Toscana (Tuscan Union of Anarchist
Communists).
The International of Anarchist Federations
(IAF/IFA) was founded during an international
anarchist conference in Carrara in 1968 by
the three existing European anarchist federations
of France (Fédération Anarchiste), Italy
(Federazione Anarchica Italiana) and Spain
(Federación Anarquista Ibérica) as well
as the Bulgarian federation in French exile.
These organizations were also inspired on
synthesist principles.
=== Contemporary times ===
Libertarian Communism was a socialist journal
founded in 1974 and produced in part by members
of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
The synthesist Italian Anarchist Federation
and the platformist Federation of Anarchist
Communists continue existing today in Italy
but insurrectionary anarchism continues to
be relevant as the recent establishment of
the Informal Anarchist Federation shows.
In the seventies in France the Fédération
Anarchiste evolved into a joining of the principles
of both synthesis anarchism and platformism
but later the platformist organizations Libertarian
Communist Organization (France) in 1976 and
Alternative libertaire in 1991 appeared with
this last one existing until today alongside
the synthesist Fédération Anarchiste.
In recent times platformist organisations
founded the now-defunct International Libertarian
Solidarity network and its successor, the
Anarkismo network; which is run collaboratively
by roughly 30 platformist organisations around
the world.
On the other hand, contemporary insurrectionary
anarchism inherits the views and tactics of
anti-organizational anarcho-communism and
"illegalism".
The Informal Anarchist Federation (not to
be confused with the synthesist Italian Anarchist
Federation also FAI) is an Italian insurrectionary
anarchist organization.
It has been described by Italian intelligence
sources as a "horizontal" structure of various
anarchist terrorist groups, united in their
beliefs in revolutionary armed action.
In 2003, the group claimed responsibility
for a bomb campaign targeting several European
Union institutions.Currently alongside the
previously mentioned federations, the International
of Anarchist Federations includes the Argentine
Libertarian Federation, the Anarchist Federation
of Belarus, the Federation of Anarchists in
Bulgaria, the Czech-Slovak Anarchist Federation,
the Federation of German speaking Anarchists
in Germany and Switzerland, and the Anarchist
Federation in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
== Economic theory ==
The abolition of money, prices, and wage labor
is central to anarchist communism.
With distribution of wealth being based on
self-determined needs, people would be free
to engage in whatever activities they found
most fulfilling and would no longer have to
engage in work for which they have neither
the temperament nor the aptitude.Anarchist
communists argue that there is no valid way
of measuring the value of any one person's
economic contributions because all wealth
is a common product of current and preceding
generations.
For instance, one could not measure the value
of a factory worker's daily production without
taking into account how transportation, food,
water, shelter, relaxation, machine efficiency,
emotional mood etc. contributed to their production.
To truly give numerical economic value to
anything, an overwhelming amount of externalities
and contributing factors would need to be
taken into account – especially current
or past labor contributing to the ability
to utilize future labor.
As Kropotkin put it: "No distinction can be
drawn between the work of each man.
Measuring the work by its results leads us
to absurdity; dividing and measuring them
by hours spent on the work also leads us to
absurdity.
One thing remains: put the needs above the
works, and first of all recognize the right
to live, and later on, to the comforts of
life, for all those who take their share in
production.."
Communist anarchism shares many traits with
collectivist anarchism, but the two are distinct.
Collectivist anarchism believes in collective
ownership while communist anarchism negates
the entire concept of ownership in favor of
the concept of usage.
Crucially, the abstract relationship of "landlord"
and "tenant" would no longer exist, as such
titles are held to occur under conditional
legal coercion and are not absolutely necessary
to occupy buildings or spaces (intellectual
property rights would also cease, since they
are a form of private property).
In addition to believing rent and other fees
are exploitative, anarcho-communists feel
these are arbitrary pressures inducing people
to carry out unrelated functions.
For example, they question why one should
have to work for 'X hours' a day to merely
live somewhere.
So instead of working conditionally for the
sake of the wage earned, they believe in working
directly for the objective at hand.
== Philosophical debates ==
=== 
Motivation ===
Anarchist communists reject the claim that
wage labor is necessary because people are
lazy and selfish by "human nature".
They often point out that even the so-called
"idle rich" sometimes find useful things to
do despite having all their needs satisfied
by the labour of others.
Anarcho-communists generally do not agree
with the belief in a pre-set "human nature",
arguing that human culture and behavior is
very largely determined by socialization and
the mode of production.
Many anarchist communists, like Peter Kropotkin,
also believe that human evolutionary tendency
is for humans to cooperate with each other
for mutual benefit and survival instead of
existing as lone competitors.While anarchist
communists such as Peter Kropotkin and Murray
Bookchin believed that the members of such
a society would voluntarily perform all necessary
labour because they would recognize the benefits
of communal enterprise and mutual aid, other
anarchist communists such as Nestor Makhno
and Ricardo Flores Magón argue that all those
able to work in an anarchist communist society
should be obligated to do so, excepting groups
like children, the elderly, the sick, or the
infirm.
Kropotkin did not think laziness or sabotage
would be a major problem in an authentically
anarchist-communist society, but he did agree
that a freely associated anarchist commune
could, and probably should, deliberately disassociate
from those not fulfilling their communal agreement
to do their share of work.
Peter Gelderloos, based off the Kibbutz, argues
that motivation in a moneyless society would
be found in the satisfaction of work, concern
for community, competition for prestige and
praise from other community members.
=== Freedom, work and leisure ===
Anarchist communists support communism as
a means for ensuring the greatest freedom
and well-being for everyone, rather than only
the wealthy and powerful.
In this sense, anarchist communism is a profoundly
egalitarian philosophy.
Anarchist communism as an anarchist philosophy
is against hierarchy in all its forms.
Anarchist communists do not think that anyone
has the right to be anyone else's master,
or 'boss' as this is a concept of capitalism
and the state and implies authority over the
individual.
Some contemporary anarchist communists and
advocates of post-left anarchy, such as Bob
Black, reject the concept of work altogether
in favor of turning necessary subsistence
tasks into voluntary free play.Peter Kropotkin
said that the main authoritarian mistakes
in communist experiments of the past were
their being based on "religious enthusiasm"
and the desire to live "as a family" where
the individual had to "submit to the dictates
of a punctilious morality".
For him anarcho-communism should be based
on the right of free association and disassociation
for individuals and groups and on significantly
lowering the number of hours each individual
dedicates to necessary labor.
He says that "to recognise a variety of occupations
as the basis of all progress and to organise
in such a way that man may be absolutely free
during his leisure time, whilst he may also
vary his work, a change for which his early
education and instruction will have prepared
him—this can easily be put in practice in
a Communist society—this, again, means the
emancipation of the individual, who will find
doors open in every direction for his complete
development".
=== Individualism and collectivism ===
Some anarcho-communists (and collectivist
anarchists as well) reject "individualism"
and "collectivism" as illusory concepts.
They argue that individuals sacrificing themselves
for the "greater", or being ruled by the "community"
or "society", is not possible because society
is composed of individuals rather than being
a cohesive unit separate from the individual,
and argue that collective control over the
individual is tyrannical and thus antithetical
to anarchism.
Others, such as Lucien van der Walt and Michael
Schmidt, argue that: "The anarchists did not
[...] identify freedom with the right of everybody
to do exactly what one pleased but with a
social order in which collective effort and
responsibilities—that is to say, obligations—would
provide the material basis and social nexus
in which individual freedom could exist."
They argued that "genuine freedom and individuality
could only exist in a free society" and that
in contrast to "misanthropic bourgeois individualism"
anarchism was based in "a deep love of freedom,
understood as a social product, a deep respect
for human rights, a profound celebration of
humankind and its potential and a commitment
to a form of society where a 'true individuality'
was irrevocably linked to 'the highest communist
socieability'".Egoist philosophical positions
are important in anarcho-communist insurrectionary
anarchism.
In the early 20th century the Italian individualist
anarchist Renzo Novatore advocated both revolution
and anarcho-communism when he said "revolution
is the fire of our will and a need of our
solitary minds; it is an obligation of the
libertarian aristocracy.
To create new ethical values.
To create new aesthetic values.
To communalize material wealth.
To individualize spiritual wealth."
From Stirnerist positions he also disrespected
private property when he said that "[o]nly
ethical and spiritual wealth" was "invulnerable.
This is the true property of individuals.
The rest no!
The rest is vulnerable!
And all that is vulnerable will be violated!"
This can also be seen in the contemporary
writings of insurrectionary anarchism, as
can be seen in the work of Wolfi Landstreicher,
Alfredo Bonanno, and others.
Post-left anarcho-communist Bob Black, after
analysing insurrectionary anarcho-communist
Luigi Galleani's view on anarcho-communism,
went as far as saying that "communism is the
final fulfillment of individualism [...] The
apparent contradiction between individualism
and communism rests on a misunderstanding
of both [...] Subjectivity is also objective:
the individual really is subjective.
It is nonsense to speak of 'emphatically prioritizing
the social over the individual,' [...] You
may as well speak of prioritizing the chicken
over the egg.
Anarchy is a 'method of individualization.'
It aims to combine the greatest individual
development with the greatest communal unity."On
the article by Max Baginski called "Stirner:
The Ego and His Own", published in the American
anarchist magazine Mother Earth, there is
the following affirmation: "Modern Communists
are more individualistic than Stirner.
To them, not merely religion, morality, family
and State are spooks, but property also is
no more than a spook, in whose name the individual
is enslaved—and how enslaved!
The individuality is nowadays held in far
stronger bondage by property, than by the
combined power of State, religion and morality
[...] The prime condition is that the individual
should not be forced to humiliate and lower
himself for the sake of property and subsistence.
Communism thus creates a basis for the liberty
and Eigenheit of the individual.
I am a Communist because I am an Individualist.
Fully as heartily the Communists concur with
Stirner when he puts the word take in place
of demand—that leads to the dissolution
of private property, to expropriation.
Individualism and Communism go hand in hand."
=== 
Property ===
Anarchist communists counter the capitalist
conception that communal property can only
be maintained by force and that such a position
is neither fixed in nature nor unchangeable
in practice, citing numerous examples of communal
behavior occurring naturally even within capitalist
systems.
Anarchist communists call for the abolition
of private property while maintaining respect
for personal property.
As such the prominent anarcho-communist Alexander
Berkman maintained that "The revolution abolishes
private ownership of the means of production
and distribution, and with it goes capitalistic
business.
Personal possession remains only in the things
you use.
Thus, your watch is your own, but the watch
factory belongs to the people.
Land, machinery, and all other public utilities
will be collective property, neither to be
bought nor sold.
Actual use will be considered the only title-not
to ownership but to possession.
The organization of the coal miners, for example,
will be in charge of the coal mines, not as
owners but as the operating agency.
Similarly will the railroad brotherhoods run
the railroads, and so on.
Collective possession, cooperatively managed
in the interests of the community, will take
the place of personal ownership privately
conducted for profit."An important difference
between anarchist communism and Marxist communism
is who the product of the worker's labor belongs
to.
Both ideologies believe that the product of
labor does not belong to the capitalist due
to it being produced by the worker and not
the employer, however, there are slight differences
between the opinions taken by anarchist communist
Peter Kropotkin and Karl Marx.
Marx stated that the product of the worker's
labor belongs to the worker due to it being
produced by the worker.
In contrast, Kropotkin believed that the product
of the worker's labor belongs to the community
as a whole.
Kropotkin argued that this was the case because
the worker relied on the previous work of
untold millions in to even begin his particular
form of labor, and therefore, his work should
belong to the community, since he benefited
from the community.
=== The commune as an economic democracy ===
Anarcho-communism has been critical of a simple
call for worker's ownership of workplaces
and their administration as cooperatives.
While not at odds with syndicalism as a tactic,
it opposes the vision of anarcho-syndicalism
as a theory, which sees a post-capitalist
economy being made up of federations of industrial
syndicates.
Instead, anarcho-communism proposes that the
future society be organised territorially
through free communes (localities), instead
of industrially through workers' unions (syndicates).
Each commune is perceived as an integrated
political-economic unit, removing the distinction
between work and community, as well as existing
as part of a wider communal-confederation
made up of other such autonomous communes,
linked together via voluntary contractual
agreements.
This is seen as overcoming the economic-centrism
of more "workerist" forms of socialism which
focus on the workplace alone as a site of
struggle.
Murray Bookchin has put it this way: But what
of the syndicalist ideal of "collectivized"
self-managed enterprises that are coordinated
by like occupations on a national level and
coordinated geographically by "collectives"
on a local level?
[...] Here, the traditional socialist criticism
of this syndicalist form of economic management
is not without its point: the corporate or
private capitalist, "worker-controlled" or
not—ironically, a technique in the repertoire
of industrial management that is coming very
much into vogue today as "workplace democracy"
and "employee ownership" and constitutes no
threat whatever to private property and capitalism
[...] In any case, "economic democracy" has
not simply meant "workplace democracy" and
"employee ownership."
Many workers, in fact, would like to get away
from their factories if they could and find
more creative artisanal types of work, not
simply "participate" in "planning" their own
misery.
What "economic democracy" meant in its profoundest
sense was free, "democratic" access to the
means of life, the counterpart of political
democracy, that is, the guarantee of freedom
from material want.
It is a dirty bourgeois trick, in which many
radicals unknowingly participate, that "economic
democracy" has been re-interpreted as "employee
ownership" and "workplace democracy" and has
come to mean workers' "participation" in profit
sharing and industrial management rather than
freedom from the tyranny of the factory, rationalized
labor, and "planned production," which is
usually exploitative production with the complicity
of the workers.
As such: Whereas the syndicalist alternative
re-privatizes the economy into "self-managed"
collectives and opens the way to their degeneration
into traditional forms of private property—whether
"collectively" owned or not—libertarian
municipalism politicizes the economy and dissolves
it into the civic domain.
Neither factory or land appear as separate
interests within the communal collective.
Nor can workers, farmers, technicians, engineers,
professionals, and the like perpetuate their
vocational identities as separate interests
that exist apart from the citizen body in
face-to-face assemblies.
"Property" is integrated into the commune
as a material constituent of its libertarian
institutional framework, indeed as a part
of a larger whole that is controlled by the
citizen body in assembly as citizens—not
as vocationally oriented interest groups.
The word "communism" in anarcho-communism
should thus be taken to refer to a polity
of communes as well as an economy of the commons.
=== The revolution and the transition ===
For platformist anarcho-communist Wayne Price:Today's
proposals for Parecon, in which workers are
rewarded for the intensity and duration of
their labor in a cooperative economy, would
fit into Bakunin's or Marx's concept of a
transitory, beginning, phase, of a free society
[...] Kropotkin rejected the two-phase approach
of the Marxists and the anarchist-collectivists.
Instead he proposed that a revolutionary society
should "transform itself immediately into
a communist society, that is, should go immediately
into what Marx had regarded as the "more advanced",
completed, phase of communism.
Kropotkin and those who agreed with him called
themselves "anarchist-communists" (or "communist
anarchists"), although they continued to regard
themselves as a part of the broader socialist
movement.Leninists believe that without a
transitional period of state control (their
interpretation of the dictatorship of the
proletariat), it would be impossible for any
revolution to maintain the momentum or cohesion
to defend the new society against external
and internal threats.
Friedrich Engels noted: "Without a previous
social revolution the abolition of the state
is nonsense; the abolition of capital is in
itself the social revolution and involves
a change in the whole method of production."
Alternatively, such quotations have been interpreted
by Anarcho-communists supportive of Marx and
Engels to suggest the abolition of capitalism
and the state simultaneously, not the creation
of a new state.
Anarchists reject the Marxist–Leninist model
of the "dictatorship of the proletariat,"
arguing that any revolutionary minority taking
over state power would be just as authoritarian
as the ruling class in capitalism to defend
the new state, and would eventually constitute
itself as a new ruling class.
As an extension of this, Anarcho-communists
counter-argue that decentralized, stateless
collective federations are sufficient to give
both power to workers and preserve personal
freedom and point to the fact that no socialist
state has ever showed signs of "withering
away".
Again, the Spanish Revolution is cited as
an example of successful anarchist military
mobilization, albeit one crushed by superior
forces.
=== Free association of communes as opposed
to the nation-state ===
Anarcho-communism calls for a confederal form
in relationships of mutual aid and free association
between communes as an alternative to the
centralism of the nation-state.
Peter Kropotkin thus suggested: Representative
government has accomplished its historical
mission; it has given a mortal blow to court-rule;
and by its debates it has awakened public
interest in public questions.
But to see in it the government of the future
socialist society is to commit a gross error.
Each economic phase of life implies its own
political phase; and it is impossible to touch
the very basis of the present economic life—private
property—without a corresponding change
in the very basis of the political organization.
Life already shows in which direction the
change will be made.
Not in increasing the powers of the State,
but in resorting to free organization and
free federation in all those branches which
are now considered as attributes of the State.
As such: [N]o community can hope to achieve
economic autarchy, nor should it try to do
so unless it wishes to become self-enclosed
and parochial, not only "self-sufficient".
Hence the confederation of communes "the Commune
of communes" is reworked economically as well
as politically into a shared universe of publicly
managed resources.
The management of the economy, precisely because
it is a public activity, does not degenerate
into privatized interactions between enterprises;
rather it develops into confederalized interactions
between municipalities.
That is to say, the very elements of societal
interaction are expanded from real or potential
privatized components to institutionally real
public components.
Confederation becomes a public project by
definition, not only because of shared needs
and resources.
If there is any way to avoid the emergence
of the city-state, not to speak of self-serving
bourgeois "cooperatives," it is through a
municipalization of political life that is
so complete that politics embraces not only
what we call the public sphere but material
means of life as well.
== Example societies through history ==
=== 
Early examples ===
There have been several attempts, both successful
and unsuccessful, at creating other anarchist-communist
societies throughout much of the world.
Anarchist-communists and some green anarchists
(especially anarcho-primitivists) argue that
hunter-gatherer tribes, like families, were
early forms of anarchist-communism due to
their egalitarian nature.
Both an ancient and modern day example of
anarcho-communism being utilised by an isolated
population would be by the hunter-gatherers
of North Sentinel Island.
North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman
Islands in the Bay of Bengal, occupied by
the Sentinelese tribe who've inhabited the
island for a least 60,000 years.
They practice a kind of primitive communism,
where all property is held collectively by
the community, and there exists no hierarchy
between different members of the group.
The workers, both male and female, control
the means of production, as all materials
found and collected go toward building small-scale
structures for housing and storing of items.
Though geographically close to the Indian
Subcontinent, the Indian government doesn't
disturb them, as they remain ungoverned.
If North Sentinel Island could be called a
country, it would be the last remaining anarchist
country on the planet.
The Andaman Islands were often said to be
inhabited by various tribes and factions,
including humanoid wolves in clothing.
These claims originate from French fiction,
written to create curiosity for places people
of Europe had never travelled.
Early Christian communities have also been
described as having anarcho-communist characteristics.
Frank Seaver Billings described "Jesusism"
as a combination of anarchism and communism.
Examples of later Christian egalitarian communities
include the Diggers.
=== Gift economies and commons-based organising
===
In anthropology and the social sciences, a
gift economy (or gift culture) is a mode of
exchange where valuable goods and services
are regularly given without any explicit agreement
for immediate or future rewards (i.e. no formal
quid pro quo exists).
Ideally, voluntary and recurring gift exchange
circulates and redistributes wealth throughout
a community, and serves to build societal
ties and obligations.
In contrast to a barter economy or a market
economy, social norms and custom governs gift
exchange, rather than an explicit exchange
of goods or services for money or some other
commodity.
Traditional societies dominated by gift exchange
were small in scale and geographically remote
from each other.
As states formed to regulate trade and commerce
within their boundaries, market exchange came
to dominate.
Nonetheless, the practice of gift exchange
continues to play an important role in modern
society.
One prominent example is scientific research,
which can be described as a gift economy.
Contrary to popular conception, there is no
evidence that societies relied primarily on
barter before using money for trade.
Instead, non-monetary societies operated largely
along the principles of gift economics, and
in more complex economies, on debt.
When barter did in fact occur, it was usually
between either complete strangers or would-be
enemies.
The expansion of the Internet has witnessed
a resurgence of the gift economy, especially
in the technology sector.
Engineers, scientists and software developers
create open-source software projects.
The Linux kernel and the GNU operating system
are prototypical examples for the gift economy's
prominence in the technology sector and its
active role in instating the use of permissive
free software and copyleft licenses, which
allow free reuse of software and knowledge.
Other examples include: file-sharing, the
commons, open access.
Anarchist scholar Uri Gordon has said that:"the
collaborative development of free software
like the Linux operating system and applications
such as OpenOffice clearly approximate an
informational anarchist communism.
Moreover, for anarchists it is precisely the
logic of expropriation and electronic piracy
that enables a radical political extension
of the cultural ideals of the free manipulation,
circulation and use of information associated
with the "hacker ethic" (Himanen 2001).
The space of illegality created by P2P (peer-to-peer)
file-sharing opens up the possibility, not
only of the open circulation of freely-given
information and software as it is on the Internet
today, but also of conscious copyright violation.
The Internet, then, enables not only communist
relations around information, but also the
militant contamination and erosion of non-communist
regimes of knowledge—a technological "weapon"
to equalise access to information, eating
away at intellectual property rights by rendering
them unenforceable.The interest in such economic
forms goes back to Peter Kropotkin, who saw
in the hunter-gatherer tribes he had visited
the paradigm of "mutual aid".
anarchist anthropologist David Graeber in
his 2011 book Debt: The First 5000 Years argues
that with the advent of the great Axial Age
civilizations, the nexus between coinage and
the calculability of economic values was concomitant
with the disrupt of what Graeber calls "human
economies," as found among the Iroquois, Celts,
Inuit, Tiv, Nuer, and the Malagasy people
of Madagascar among other groups which, according
to Graeber, held a radically different conception
of debt and social relations, based on the
radical incalculability of human life and
the constant creation and recreation of social
bonds through gifts, marriages and general
sociability.
The author postulates the growth of a "military-coinage-slave
complex" around this time, through which mercenary
armies looted cities and human beings were
cut from their social context to work as slaves
in Greece, Rome and elsewhere in the Eurasian
continent.
The extreme violence of the period marked
by the rise of great empires in China, India
and the Mediterranean was, in this way, connected
with the advent of large-scale slavery and
the use of coins to pay soldiers, together
with the obligation enforced by the State
for its subjects to pay its taxes in currency.
This was also the same time that the great
religions spread out and the general questions
of philosophical enquiry emerged on world
history—many of those directly related,
as in Plato's Republic, with the nature of
debt and its relation to ethics.
=== Korean Anarchist Movement ===
The Korean Anarchist Movement in Korea led
by Kim Chwa-chin briefly brought anarcho-communism
to Korea.
The success was short-lived and much less
widespread than the anarchism in Spain.
The Korean People's Association in Manchuria
had established a stateless, classless society
where all means of production were run and
operated by the workers, and where all possessions
were held in common by the community.
=== Urban communities ===
Trumbullplex, as an example of an anarchist
community, operates to serve the common good
through sheltering residents within a neighbourhood
of Detroit, Michigan.
This allows individuals who've previously
gone into debt by means of rent to escape
their economic burdens and join a democratic
commune.
The commune has served as a hangout for young
members of the locality, alongside a place
intended for teamwork and cooperative decision
making.
This is often accompanied by music of the
punk rock genre and frequent parties and celebrations
thrown by Trumbullplex members.
The commune has existed since 1993.
Its current ideology, the same as its founding
ideology, was to establish a settlement based
on principles of mutual aid and the absence
of hierarchy.
=== Give-away shops ===
Give-away shops, free shops, or free stores,
are stores where all goods are free.
They are similar to charity shops, with mostly
second-hand items—only everything is available
at no cost.
Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture,
a garment or a household item, it is all freely
given away, although some operate a one-in,
one-out–type policy (swap shops).
The free store is a form of constructive direct
action that provides a shopping alternative
to a monetary framework, allowing people to
exchange goods and services outside of a money-based
economy.
The anarchist 1960s countercultural group
The Diggers opened free stores which simply
gave away their stock, provided free food,
distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized
free music concerts, and performed works of
political art.
The Diggers took their name from the original
English Diggers led by Gerrard Winstanley
and sought to create a mini-society free of
money and capitalism.
Although free stores have not been uncommon
in the United States since the 1960s, the
freegan movement has inspired the establishment
of more free stores.
Today the idea is kept alive by the new generations
of social centres, anarchists and environmentalists
who view the idea as an intriguing way to
raise awareness about consumer culture and
to promote the reuse of commodities.
== See also
