#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #SPAIN #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) Spaine, cnt-sindikatua: A critical appraisal of what an anarchist political economy could be, Written by Angela Wigger (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Confused with anti-statism, "anything goes", chaos, violence and terrorism,

anarchism is probably one of the most misunderstood and demonized political
ideologies of our time. Anarchist writings have long been the preserve of
activist subcultures, while attracting only marginal attention in academic
circles. The tide appears to have turned along with widespread disillusionment
with the authoritarian neoliberal state and Orwellian surveillance apparatuses
that have spread in the wake of the current crisis. In particular, the political
impulse of horizontalist social movements with anarchist features, which take
over the squares and demand "real democracy now", has stimulated a renewed
academic curiosity about anarchist ideas and practices. Much of this ideological
appreciation may only be transitory in nature, flirting with what David Graeber
(2002: 72) called 'small-scale anarchism'. Despite this, the renewed interest in
anarchist thought is an example of the search for an alternative socioeconomic
order, one that goes beyond reformist and parochial conceptions of what is
commonly considered politically acceptable and feasible.

The (re)production of everyday life through work is at the base of every economic
and political system, including the one that could be anarchist. What alternative
views on the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services does
anarchism offer? What are the virtues and pitfalls of an anarchist organization
of the economy? Anarchism may not be famous for its distinguished views on
economics; however, a number of anarchists have outlined quite concrete views on
how to organize alternative forms of production and, for that matter, an
alternative socio-economic order that is not capitalistic in essence.

This article critically discusses the merits and limits of anarchist utopias and
actual existing examples of what might be called anarchist economic organization.
It will be argued that the anarchist legacy has much to offer when it comes to
proposing anti-capitalist alternatives, but that there are also important
shortcomings.

Leaving the comfort zones of mere capitalist critique and envisioning a
non-capitalist anarchist future may seem a dauntingly naive undertaking. However,
we must not forget that an integral part of critical inquiry is not only to
explain and criticize the structures of the existing social order, but also to
formulate coherent visions of alternatives that transcend this order (Cox, 1996).
It could be said that alternative visions, anarchist or not, will always be
incomplete and imperfect. As Emma Goldman (1927: 7) reminds us, anarchism is not
"a closed program or method about the future." The solutions to the problems of
society are found rather in a dialectical interaction between thought and
action,. An important set of questions has its roots in the long-standing and
multifaceted antagonism between anarchism and Marxism. The purpose of this
contribution is not to (re)produce orthodox platitudes or to reconcile what can
or cannot be reconciled, but rather to exploit some of the tensions arising from
the different ontological foci that support anarchist and Marxist views and its
ramifications of transformative action (see also Wigger and Buch-Hansen, 2013).

Anarchism as emancipatory theory and praxis
Anarchist theory encompasses a heterodox compilation of ideas, which mean
different things to different people and which are constantly changing and
evolving. Therefore, referring to an authentic and homogeneous anarchism would be
just as wrong as referring to a genuine Marxism (White and Williams, 2012: 1628).
For the brevity of this article, however, some broad generalizations will be
unavoidable. When stripped down to its quintessence and stripped of its various
qualifying adjectives, anarchism boils down to a profound skepticism toward
unequal and coercive social power relations, whether alongside class, race,
gender, or people with different backgrounds. sexual orientations (McLaughlin,
2010). Anarchists aim to maximize individual autonomy and collective freedom"

Anarchism is often associated with a deep mistrust of formal organizations,
particularly the state. However, anarchism is not simply anti-state or
anti-government. The State, as a set of norms and institutions, is considered
nothing more than a source of unequal social power relations. As Schmidt and van
der Walt (2009: 71) say, "anti-statism is, at best, a necessary component of
anarchist thought, but not a sufficient basis for classifying a set of ideas or a
particular thinker as part of the anarchist tradition. The thorny question of the
State has become a kind of elephant in the room, especially among the so-called
anarchists of the lowercase letter "a", who are inclined to believe that the
Leviathan can still be tamed as Thomas Hobbes suggested, and who instead advocate
a radical democratization of the state. Capital "A" anarchists are wholeheartedly
anti-capitalist and see the state as inseparable from the capitalist system. They
criticize the capitalist state for codifying, legitimizing and representing
social inequalities through a hierarchical and authoritarian concentration of
power in the hands of the ruling classes (Williams, 2007: 300; McKay, 2008:
1633). As capitalism would succumb without the regulatory apparatuses of the
state and the centralized condensation of power, the branch of the
self-proclaimed "anarcho-capitalists", who favor laissez-faire capitalism without
the state, cannot be considered anarchists (see Shannon, 2012: 280).

The common points between anarchism and Marxism are crucial: both condemn the
capitalist exploitation of work and nature; both see the state as an instrument
of class domination and conceive of communism as stateless; and both share a core
commitment to a fairer and more equal society. Anarchists, however, lack a
differentiated analysis and critique of global capitalism and often rely on
Marxist ideas (both positively and negatively), which is why anarchism is
sometimes pigeonholed as Marxism's poor cousin. The commitment is often
unreciprocal and openly adversarial. Many of the remnants of the First
International of 1872, in which Karl Marx expelled Mikhail Bakunin and other
anarchists, remain to this day (see Bakunin, 1998[1950]; McKay, 2008: 1668-1693).
Condescension can be found in both camps. Anarchists sometimes rely on crude
reductionist views on Marxism (see Schmidt and van der Walt, 2009), forgetting
that Marxism offers both an analysis of the social world and a political project,
while not all Marxists necessarily embody both dimensions. . Marxists, in turn,
seem frequently preoccupied with theorizing and analyzing capitalism and its
crises, while completely ignoring anarchist works or dismissing them as eclectic,
theoretically superficial, and conceptually imprecise. In this sense, the Marxist
historian Eric Hobsbawm (1973) is illustrative, who has railed against anarchist
ideas and movements, which he considers ineffective,

This longstanding antagonism is unfortunate, as the growing literature on
alternative anarchist economic production is serious and sophisticated (see
Shannon et al., 2012; or the voluminous and detailed work of McKay, 2008). This
emerging literature places special emphasis on the fact that the critique of
capitalism must be followed by the dialectic of developing alternatives and
action towards a post-neoliberal and post-capitalist order. Social change and the
emancipation of the oppressed constitute the axis of anarchism: the structures,
processes, practices and identities of social inequality must not only be
criticized, but also challenged in daily struggles and actions. While the
Marxists may have produced brilliant theoretical discourses, Normally sheltered
in the cozy ivory towers of academia, anarchists are said to have become more
focused on getting things done (Kinna and Prichard, 2012; Williams, 2007).
Drawing on first-hand (positive) experiences in laboratories of lived anarchist
practice in small groups, communes, and councils, anarchists tend to be slightly
more optimistic about the prospect of overthrowing capitalism, while their
Marxist cousins frequently lack similar experiences and they tend to be
intellectually more pessimistic. That is why anarchism is sometimes presented as
the passionate and idealistic heart in contrast to the sober and realistic head
of Marxism (Kinna and Prichard, 2012). Drawing on first-hand (positive)
experiences in laboratories of lived anarchist practice in small groups,
communes, and councils, anarchists tend to be slightly more optimistic about the
prospect of overthrowing capitalism, while their Marxist cousins frequently lack
similar experiences and they tend to be intellectually more pessimistic. That is
why anarchism is sometimes presented as the passionate and idealistic heart in
contrast to the sober and realistic head of Marxism (Kinna and Prichard, 2012).
Drawing on first-hand (positive) experiences in laboratories of lived anarchist
practice in small groups, communes, and councils, anarchists tend to be slightly
more optimistic about the prospect of overthrowing capitalism, while their
Marxist cousins frequently lack similar experiences and they tend to be
intellectually more pessimistic. That is why anarchism is sometimes presented as
the passionate and idealistic heart in contrast to the sober and realistic head
of Marxism (Kinna and Prichard, 2012). while their Marxist cousins often lack
similar experiences and tend to be more pessimistic intellectually. That is why
anarchism is sometimes presented as the passionate and idealistic heart in
contrast to the sober and realistic head of Marxism (Kinna and Prichard, 2012).
while their Marxist cousins often lack similar experiences and tend to be more
pessimistic intellectually. That is why anarchism is sometimes presented as the
passionate and idealistic heart in contrast to the sober and realistic head of
Marxism (Kinna and Prichard, 2012).

The anarchist answer to Lenin's famous question "What to do?" it differs from
traditional Marxist politics on important points. Although there is no common
anarchist position on how to organize the move from capitalism to what anarchists
would call libertarian communism or anarcho-communism, anarchists do not see the
role of authority and the centralization of power in the form of an elite
vanguard party or of a red bureaucracy by delegation of the proletarian masses
that would temporarily take over the State as a place of political transition.
Anarchists do not believe that the state will at some point miraculously wither
away, as so-called classical Marxism, and in particular its Leninist branch,
would suggest. For anarchists, the form is the content and the content is the form.

With the exception of an insurrectionist strand that propagates an instant
revolutionary upsurge of the popular masses, anarchist strategies for social
transformation tend to be both non-revolutionary and non-reformist in nature.
Anarchists see social change as something incremental, taking place here and now,
and not in the form of a grand transformation that would liberate all of humanity
once and for all in the distant future - a stance generally attributed to Marxist
politics. John Holloway's books Change the World without Taking Power (2003) and
Cracks of Capitalism(2010) largely reflect this point of view. Just as capitalism
developed in the interstices of feudalism, it is also believed that the
transformation towards a non-capitalist and anarchist society will progressively
evolve through the expansion of social spaces with alternative organizational
forms. Since the struggle to overcome capitalism cannot be imposed or delegated
from top-down hierarchical and formal power systems, such as the state or
political parties, bottom-up grassroots struggles that aim to change
micro-relationships in everyday life are considered the vanguard to change the
macrostructures. The ethos of "prefigurative direct action" and "propaganda by
deed" is central in this regard (see Maeckelbergh, 2011): the new forms of social
organization must be realized immediately, while the means of social change must
prefigure the envisioned anarchist future (prefigurative direct action).
Furthermore, through exemplary political actions that expose anarchist practices
as positive (propaganda by deed), anarchists seek to stimulate solidarity
activities and imitation, hoping that this will eventually coalesce into a larger
movement and stifle capitalism at some point (Carter and Moreland, 2004; Gordon,
2008). Therefore, anarchism must be understood as a way of living in the present,
as well as a goal for the future (Ferguson, 2011). while the means of social
change must prefigure the anticipated anarchist future (prefigurative direct
action). Furthermore, through exemplary political actions that expose anarchist
practices as positive (propaganda by deed), anarchists seek to stimulate
solidarity activities and imitation, hoping that this will eventually coalesce
into a larger movement and stifle capitalism at some point (Carter and Moreland,
2004; Gordon, 2008). Therefore, anarchism must be understood as a way of living
in the present, as well as a goal for the future (Ferguson, 2011). while the
means of social change must prefigure the anticipated anarchist future
(prefigurative direct action). Furthermore, through exemplary political actions
that expose anarchist practices as positive (propaganda by deed), anarchists seek
to stimulate solidarity activities and imitation, hoping that this will
eventually coalesce into a larger movement and stifle capitalism at some point
(Carter and Moreland, 2004; Gordon, 2008). Therefore, anarchism must be
understood as a way of living in the present, as well as a goal for the future
(Ferguson, 2011). hoping that this will eventually coalesce into a larger
movement and stifle capitalism at some point (Carter and Moreland, 2004; Gordon,
2008). Therefore, anarchism must be understood as a way of living in the present,
as well as a goal for the future (Ferguson, 2011). hoping that this will
eventually coalesce into a larger movement and stifle capitalism at some point
(Carter and Moreland, 2004; Gordon, 2008). Therefore, anarchism must be
understood as a way of living in the present, as well as a goal for the future
(Ferguson, 2011).

Sketching the contours of an anarchist political economy
The (re)production of social life is essentially a collective effort, which
engenders social relations of power. Like Marxists, anarchists fundamentally
question the unequal social power relations within capitalism between the wealthy
few, who control the means of production, and the many workers, who sell their
labor. Committed to horizontal organization, anarchists seek a radical
redistribution of wealth and power, striving to create the material conditions
for a non-exploitative and egalitarian society with structures of communal
ownership of the means of production. What is also called libertarian communism,
or mutualism, it would be based on the free experimentation of different kinds of
economic arrangements - arrangements that go beyond production for profit and
generally revolve around decentralized, democratically managed, horizontal
(direct) production collectives. As the anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker
(2009[1938]) suggested, different organizational forms of production can coexist.
This plethora of autonomous and self-organizing places of production would not
exist in isolation. Voluntary associations or contracts with others would be
formed, giving rise to groupings or horizontal networks in which products and
services would be exchanged. Since anarchism cannot be imposed on people, there
would always be an uncomfortable contradiction between individual and collective
self-organization. Besides, democratic decisions should be respected for a
hierarchical organization of production. Thus, the degrees of horizontal
organization and autonomy would vary between the different production groups.

The core values and principles of anarchist thought, such as autonomy, voluntary
cooperation and mutual support, as well as fairness, solidarity and mutual
respect, would prevail in the organization of economic activities.

While voluntary cooperation in the field of the economy refers to agreements
between economic entities that focus on joint projects and the achievement of
common goals, mutual support refers to altruistic and supportive practices aimed
at improving the well-being of economic entities without the aid provider
benefiting directly from it (see Wigger and Buch-Hansen, 2013). The anarchists of
the classical canon, such as Bakunin, were convinced that cooperation would be
the predominant form of social organization. Similarly, Kropotkin (2006[1902])
criticized social-Darwinian logic based on the idea of survival of the fittest,
arguing that voluntary cooperation and, above all, mutual support were much more
successful traits in survival. human than selfish behavior. Furthermore,
Kropotkin recognized that human beings have both selfish and social instincts,
but he did not consider either to be the primary determinant. Consequently, a
system that gives primacy toHomo economicus , always rationally calculating and
maximizing utility, can be as conditioning socially as a system that gives
primacy to the traits of Homo socialis .

A number of anarchists have elaborated quite detailed visions of what such
democratically managed and socialized forms of production would look like. A
canonical overview would be beyond the scope of this article. Michael Albert and
Robin Hahnel's (1991) work on a participatory economy, Parecon, is probably one
of the best known but also one of the most criticized (see also Albert, 2003;
Hahnel, 2005). Several authors and branches of the literature could be mentioned
that also focus on egalitarian cooperative forms of self-managed production,
albeit without a direct commitment to anarchism, such as works on "post-growth
societies" (Daly, 1996; Jackson, 2008; Latouche, 2009). ), a "humanized economy"
(Restakis, 2010) and "real utopias" (Wright, 2010). The extensive literature on
"commons" with collectively shared access, use and ownership rights also falls
into this category. Suffice it to say that all these visions can be a source of
inspiration for an anarchist organization of the economy.

Decentralized and democratically planned collectivist production would allow what
Karl Polanyi (1944) called the reincorporation of the economy into social
relations, instead of running society as a complement to the market, as occurs in
contemporary capitalism. Production would be organized according to needs. As
Piotr Kropotkin (2008[1892]: 201) outlined in his view of anarcho-communism:
"Before producing something, must one not feel the need for it?[...]Is it not the
study of needs that must govern production? The question of an economy based on
needs is also central to Marx and to what he called "use value", rather than
production for commercial profit or "exchange value". A needs-based orientation
would break with the imperative of relentless capital accumulation and economic
growth, as well as with the hedonistic consumerism of the privileged, which, as
Bookchin (1986: 21) aptly observed, "pacifies but never satisfies." Production
surplus, needed to create reserves for times of economic insecurity or scarcity,
would still be needed but kept at bay. Some areas would be relatively small or
locally or regionally oriented, particularly in the area of food and commodities.
In this way, not only production, but also distribution and consumption would be
less alienated, local autonomy and sovereignty would be strengthened, and
energy-wasting long-distance trade would be reduced. Nevertheless, This does not
mean that large-scale industries that use advanced technologies and benefit from
economies of scale or trade have to be completely abandoned. The appropriate
scale of production (and trade) would have to be determined democratically,
taking into account the objective needs of production and of those who work and
live alongside the production processes (McKay, 2008).

Anarchists consider sufficient leisure time to be essential to the conscious
creation of a balanced life. As Kropotkin (2008[1892]: 63, 172) underlined,
economic production should be oriented towards "well-being for all", "providing
society with the greatest amount of useful products with the least waste of human
energy". In an anarchist organization of economic production, a new division of
labor would emerge. The workplace would not be fixed, which would allow a
balanced composition of tasks. The workers would participate in the planning and
make the decisions concerning the organization of daily work, including also the
decisions to leave the production collectives to their own free will. In
addition, the workplace would be a site of creativity, self-esteem, mutual
learning and exchange of knowledge, which would allow personal growth, job
satisfaction and appreciation of good work. In that sense, the Fordist-type
factory environment is the antithesis of an anarchist mode of production:
machine-paced assembly lines and coercive Taylorist management structures
suppress not only the autonomy but also the self-esteem of the workforce. , while
concentrating power in the hands of those who control the assembly line (Scott,
2013).

Evaluate the virtues and limits of an anarchist political economy
Throughout history, self-managed and horizontally organized centers of production
have existed throughout the world in which workers make direct democratic
decisions and own the means of production. In contemporary capitalism one can
also find various types of consumer and producer cooperatives, cooperative banks,
sustainable communities such as ecovillages (Alperovitz, 2005) or temporary
autonomous zones (Bay, 1985). It is estimated that there are currently 1.4
million cooperatives with almost one billion members worldwide (Monaghan and
Ebrey, 2012: 29). Examples can be found in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy,
where there are 8,100 cooperatives that produce 40% of the region's GDP; in
India, with more than 239 million people working in cooperatives,ibid .).

Cooperatives of every kind imaginable are certainly less exploitative and often
allow valuable areas of worker autonomy, basic income rights, (more) equitable
remuneration schemes, sustainable employment, and high degrees of community
livability (see Bateman, 2012). ). However, operating on the margins of
capitalism, cooperatives cannot easily evade the imperatives of competitive
capital accumulation. An example is the famous Mondragón Cooperative Corporation,
in Euskal Herria. As part of its expansion strategy, Mondragón subcontracted
production to subsidiary companies in China, Mexico, Poland, Brazil or the Czech
Republic to benefit from cheap unskilled or semi-skilled labor, while many of the
120 linked companies are not organized as cooperatives (Errasti et al., 2003).
Instead of improving North-South cooperation through green zone investments,
Mondragon expanded mainly through joint ventures and acquisitions, while
restricting actual cooperative membership and "one worker, one vote" rules. only
to Basque plants (ibid. ). Overall, only a third of the more than 80,000
full-time employees are partners. Furthermore, for the sake of efficiency,
crucial decisions are no longer taken through direct democratic structures, but
through a board of directors accountable through annual elections.

As Noam Chomsky (1999) argued, the roots of a successor project to capitalism and
its neoliberal organization will have to be built within the existing economy.
Arguably, experiments in the present will always be imperfect (see also Nathan,
2011, for the pitfalls of existing cooperatives in the former Yugoslavia and
South Africa). Furthermore, anarchist places of production, which develop on the
brink of capitalist competition, always run the risk of falling back into
capitalism. Bakunin already warned in the 1870s that the capitalist sector would
conquer the non-capitalist and that the cooperatives would end up adopting a
bourgeois mentality. That is why Bakunin, as the representative of the
revolutionary anarchists, did not believe in a gradual and peaceful systemic
transformation. Democratic structures at work are also not a sufficient key to a
non-capitalist order. As Joseph Kay points out (in Shannon et al., 2012: 282),
"the assets of a cooperative do not cease to be capital when you vote on how they
are used within a society of generalized production and wage labor". Production
cooperatives also do not automatically break with the exploitation of
non-renewable natural resources or stop the depletion of the environment. In
order to survive and maintain market shares, adhering to market logics, such as
buying low and selling high, or minimizing costs and maximizing profits, is not
only tempting but sometimes even unavoidable. Cooperatives cannot easily escape
the coercive forces of capitalist competition and its depreciating effects on
labor when faced with competitors and price wars. In times of economic recession
and strong competitive pressures, cooperatives can suffer from collective
self-exploitation through "democratically" imposed austerity measures in the form
of longer working hours, lower incomes and, in the worst case, redundancies.

Capitalist competition is in many ways anathema to anarchist values and
principles. Not many anarchists have paid attention to the social ramifications
of competitive capital accumulation (exceptions are Albert 2003; McKay 2008). The
freedom to compete is often confused with political freedom and individual
self-determination. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1988[1846]: 272), one of the first
self-proclaimed anarchists, saw a clear role for competitive behavior among
worker-owned firms in his version of market socialism, arguing that competition
"is the vital force that animates the collective being: to destroy it, if such a
supposition were possible, would be to kill society". The idea that outperforming
others would bring out the best in people could be really appealing and
politically motivating. However, it does not take into account, as Marx
(1973[1939]: 650) maintained, that "it is not individuals who are liberated
through free competition; it is, rather, capital that is liberated." By giving
primacy to grassroots collective self-organization, the terrain of anarchist
social struggles tends to be ontologically limited to changing micro-contexts,
while competitive capitalist logics operate at the systemic level. This raises
important questions about whether a genuine reorientation of society towards an
alternative organization can arise only at the micro level (see also Wigger and
Buch-Hansen, 2013). Besides, It remains questionable whether competitive
pressures can be eliminated in a non-capitalist economy. The particularistic
interests of the communities of producers to acquire more privileges can easily
invade the superior ethical objectives, also in an anarchist political economy.
Although there is nothing wrong with producing better and more innovative
products with a competitive sports spirit, competition ends up breaking down more
than it unites. Apart from being highly stressful, competition can fundamentally
put people at odds, disrupt social relations and undermine solidarity and common
projects. Not everyone who plays can win, and failure or humiliation can cause
anxiety, hostility, or outright aggression, interfering with performance and
creativity (Kohn, 1986).

The disadvantages of competition are certainly intensified under capitalism. An
anarchist organization of economics might try to diminish competition. This would
require social institutions that try to protect the cooperative commonwealth from
creeping capitalist logics. Contrary to popular belief, anarchism is not opposed
to organization or the establishment of institutions. Social institutions and
places where people meet, discuss mutual expectations, or make decisions are
indispensable to any society (see also Albert, 2012). However, anarchist
institutions would be different from the current institutional architecture that
regulates economic production and exchange. The institutions would enshrine core
values and principles for anarchism, such as fairness, solidarity, voluntary
cooperation and mutual aid. Anarchist institutions, like any institution, would
certainly limit the much praised autonomy and freedom, and there would always be
a minority that would disagree with the established consensus, which cannot be
coerced in a given institutional framework. Anarchist institutions, however,
would seek to maximize collective and egalitarian autonomy and self-management,
and would be subject to decentralized democratic mediation and open to periodic
reassessment and adjustment by those who participate in these institutions and/or
are affected by them. affected by them. they would certainly limit the much
praised autonomy and freedom, and there would always be a minority that would
disagree with the established consensus, which cannot be coerced within a given
institutional framework. Anarchist institutions, however, would seek to maximize
collective and egalitarian autonomy and self-management, and would be subject to
decentralized democratic mediation and open to periodic reassessment and
adjustment by those who participate in these institutions and/or are affected by
them. affected by them. they would certainly limit the much praised autonomy and
freedom, and there would always be a minority that would disagree with the
established consensus, which cannot be coerced within a given institutional
framework. Anarchist institutions, however, would seek to maximize collective and
egalitarian autonomy and self-management, and would be subject to decentralized
democratic mediation and open to periodic reassessment and adjustment by those
who participate in these institutions and/or are affected by them. affected by them.

Horizontally organized and democratically managed collectives could offer patent
solutions for the organization of production at the micro level. Direct
democratic and consensual decision-making structures, already based on rather
omnipotent human beings, would be impossible to address macro-level problems that
go beyond the local or regional. Anarchists, from Bakunin to Proudhon to
Bookchin, as well as many anarcho-syndicalists, have always been committed
internationalists, and have recognized the need for nested, higher-order
institutions of government for the coordination of public affairs beyond the
local. Federal structures are often seen as the macrosystemic complement to
self-management and direct democracy at the micro level. Based on an ascending
organization of revocable delegates, the largest units of the federation would
have the fewest powers and would be subordinate to the lower (local) levels,
ideally leaving the confederal councils the task of mere coordination. To what
extent these federal structures would ultimately resemble state structures as we
know them is certainly debatable.

conclusion
The bottom-up initiatives of self-managed production collectives arguably
exemplify prefigurative anarchist politics, and can be essentially emancipatory
and empowering in nature. However, anarchist organizational values and
principles, such as cooperation and mutual aid, as well as other forms of
empathic and supportive behavior, always run the risk of being subordinated to
notions of winning and narrow, short-term interests in the presence of ruthless
competitive pressures (capitalists). Anarchists, by giving ontological primacy to
social struggles at the micro level, can learn from the macrosystemic vision of
Marxists, starting from the point of view of the totality, and therefore, of
global capitalism.

Other aspects that have not been discussed here would be scarcity and economic
uncertainty; the monetization or not of the exchange of goods and services; or
simply the fact that the aggregate effect of individual decisions can produce
circumstances against the interest of those who are subject to them, which
amounts to booms and busts, overproduction and overinvestment (see McKay, 2008).

Although it is impossible to draw clear blueprints for an anarchist political
economy and concise roadmaps for how to get there, anarchist utopias provide
valuable inspiration for prefiguring an equal distribution of wealth and power in
a society. If we understand utopianism as "the perpetual exploration of new ways
to perfect an imperfect reality" (Niman, 1997: 302), then the mere possibility of
imagining a different world already harbors the prospect of its becoming a viable
project (see Eckert , 2011: 69). However, these utopias should not be excessively
romantic or idealized, since they can easily be transmuted into dogmatic
orthodoxies (Ferguson, 2011: 154). It is important to note that utopias always
have to be revised in the light of past and actual practices.

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http://www.cnt-sindikatua.org/es/noticias/una-valoracion-critica-de-lo-que-podria-ser-una-economia-politica-anarquista
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