Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 14:10:46 -0700
From: "Brian O. Sheppard" <bakunin-AT-anarcho.zzn.com>
Subject: Re: Exploitation and How it Affects You - An Anarchist


How should revenue be distributed? You're a member of the "Anarchist Action
Network" - so I am guessing that you, like I, advocate the anarchist answer
to that: through socialization of the means of production. The creation of
factory councils, workplace democracy, and self management of firms by the
workers thatw ork in them (not the State, nor upper management) would
establish a system wherein distribution of resources was handled as
democratically as possible. This is direct economic democracy. A 19th
Century concept? So is the theory of evolution. A theory or critique should
not be seen as invalidated due to its age or time of origin but rather by
its relevance; anarchism itself arises from enlightenment thought, in the
persons of William Godwin, Proudhon, and the like. That was several hundred
years ago. I, for one, believe anarchism is still the answer.

I used the worker producing a candy bar in one of the several examples I
gave because I wanted to use an extremely simple example accessible to lay
person who don't have time to rummage through large academic discourses. If
what I wrote sparks their own interest in learning more about teh topic, I
think I've done what I intended to do. I didn't want to write the complex
treatise you think is the only answer to what I think you and I would agree
is the current mess we have on our hands in the form of state-subsidized
capitalism (yes, it's true that consistent capitalism won't admit to
subsidies from the State but we are dealing with "free" markets in the real
world here and not in the classrooms of the Murray Rothbards of the world).

What I wrote is/was intended as a pamphlet, a handbill, something to get
people interested, not an all inclusive discussion of the many facets of
our economy that you seem to want. I could have kept talking for volumes -
and some people do - but here I was limiting myself to a very specific
subject.

I can respond to things that I wrote, but you want me to answer paragraph
after paragraph of things I never wrote - and that is beyond the scope of
the time I can afford to dedicate to email.

The basic premise - that there are owners of capital and those who rent
themselves out to them in order to live - is extremely relevant today.
Anyone who doesn't see this needs to step out of the coffeehouse for awhile
and get back in touch with reality.

Brian