Discussions about scarcity and anarchism that I’ve seen online seem to always talk about “scarcity in the large”, i.e. how does an anarchist society allocate production, food, labour, materials etc.
I’ve a question about anarchism and scarcity in the small. Say, a really nice location, eg. a breezy location in a very hot climate, or the room with the nice windows in the community centre, or Bag End at the top of the hill. Say, an anarchist community has decided to use the location for purpose X, but a minority wants to use it for purpose Y. Maybe an even smaller minority wants to do Z, and a bunch of other people have their own little ideas about how to use it. Some are transient and could be accommodated (you get it on Tuesdays 5-7) but others might not be (“our sculpture project needs to dry out in that specific spot for the next 4 months, we know it blocks the view but it’s the only place the breeze hits just right!”) or could be contradictory (the siesta people vs the loud backgammon players can’t both use the spot at high noon) or antagonistic (the teenagers who want to party late vs the new parents who need quiet for the babies). And dis-association doesn’t really help here because that’s the nice spot for many kilometers around or there is literally no way to create another beach for our small island community because that’s literally the only place on the island where sand exists, so we can’t just off and leave. (* Many of these examples are imagining a hot summer in an anarchist Greece, sorry it’s almost August.)
It looks to me like a simple non-life-and-death scenario like this could potentially completely poison and destroy a community and in the face of that it would be the little death of anti-authoritarian organizing. Like yea, when life and death matters are at hand, anarchists will band together and conquer the bread. But petty small-scale little shit where it’s managing annoyances and small grievances, I don’t think non-authoritarian decision making can solve. And I suspect it’s crap like this that has killed off many intentional communities and experiments or made them veer away from non-hierarchical, anti-authoritarian organizing.
Have anarchist thinkers seriously thought of this?
But that just creates the authority of the status quo. The people who want “nothing new happening” are the ones who win by default. It’s basically entrenched anarchist nimbyism.
Ok, here’s me not being an anarchist, but I think that assuming that all people are not going to be petty and antagonistic is even more utopian that post-scarcity.
No.
The act of trying to dictate the use of resources without negotiating with other stakeholders is the kind of parasitism that anarchism mitigates.
They can certainly have a voice if they come to the table and do the work of engaging with people.
If someone is petty or antagonistic, direct democracy will shut them down. Getting outvoted isn’t tyranny.
As an answer this comes close to what I’m asking. But I’m not sure. For example, always getting outvoted can mean eventually getting being pushed out of a place can be tyrannical. I don’t think direct democracy has some magical ability to fix things on its own. In any case what I’m asking is if people have thought through these dynamics over time.
The opposite is true. A single person staking out some resource is it’s own tyranny. If the single person’s wants are so far removed from the collective, why are they there?
It’s not magical, it’s the strategy that you use to solve the problems.
Because the were born there? Because they have lived there for 40 years?
But also we might not be talking about an individual, but one or more groups. In keeping with my setting, in any given Greek village there are multiple groups with super volatile competing agendas.
Right. This idea is impossible, since the groups would not be able to be isolated from eachother to the point of not having any commonality, while also sharing infrastructure and resources.
The teenagers would have parents. The sculptors need to eat, and would have relationships with producers and toolmakers and the rest of the town as a whole.
Human experiences aren’t atomic, and can’t really be separated into a neat tableaux like the one you are positing.
Good point, you’re right, the social network should help mediate this beyond formalistic notions. Thanks.