the point is not to exploit others labor by expropriation of the means of production, no one cares what you do with your own labor
This all just sounds like a free market, or anarcho capitalism, or really just anarchy. Horseshoe theory, and all that…
What if a person creates a new type of clothing that has high demand because it’s better than what exists before?
What if that person starts getting interest from other people who want the clothes and they try to trade currency (I’m not sure if in your communist system this exists, so consider other items people have or something) and then transactions start to happen?
What if the person gets so busy, he gets another person to help him with the trades in exchange for a fixed amount?
In which of these steps does it turn from “no one cares what you do with your own labor” to “give us your business or else”?
This simply wouldn’t happen because an anarchist society wouldn’t recognize intellectual property and so it would be trivial to just… make more of this kind of clothing. And no, there is no currency, and barter would be pointless as access to goods is common anyways.
This whole point to me signals a deeper (but common) misunderstanding as to what the point of it all is, though; there would be no incentive or reason for someone to act this way in any kind of postcapitalist society, because the assumptions you are making that even make this situation possible are false.
Labour is not a repulsive act that people have to be paid to do; for virtually any “job”, even the most repulsive, there are some people who are truly passionate about it. But in a society where doing said work is demanded under threat of starvation, any appeal it may have had is soured by the reality of this situation and it shifts from a fulfilling and desirable action to a repulsive one.
As an extra point that not all anarchists will agree with, increases in productivity thanks to automation and technological progress (often spearheaded not by corporate projects under NDA but by the open-source community and individual hackers, only to be commercialized by corporations) mean that the real quantity of work that needs to be performed to uphold humanity at a good standard of living is drastically less than the amount currently being performed. Capitalism is inefficient, both in that it doesn’t allocate resources where they’re productive (accumulation of capital) and because of work duplication and artificial barriers (tech and engineering firms keeping code/designs private or patented, industry keeping trade secrets, etc.)
tl;dr that scenario is impossible.
The thing is, there are jobs that need to be done but no one wants and there are jobs everyone wants but only few are needed/have the ability to do it.
Do you really believe that in a state where everything you need is provided enough people will be “passionate” about sewer maintenance?
The thought of enough people will be passionate about every job in order to fill the required number of positions in those jobs, when everything is provided whether they work or not, is simply a delusion.
I’m not sure the problem is so trivial.
Long before the existence of IP, people who developed something new would keep their manufacturing process secret in order to prevent competition. Even today, sometimes they still do (in fact, the purpose of patents is to discourage trade secrets).
Now suppose someone invents a new medicine, or a new alloy, or a new machine, or a new algorithm, and refuses to tell anyone how it was made or how it works.
And suppose reverse engineering isn’t feasible. Maybe it’s too much work considering the value of the product (nobody is interested in reverse engineering your particular favorite shampoo). Or maybe the machine uses sufficiently strong encryption to prevent its reproduction. Or maybe there is some other obstacle.
Again, before modern capitalism these problems were the norm. If you wanted a very particular product, you often had no choice but to find a very particular provider.
As before, at what point does paying someone to help make such a product become exploitation?
What if the person gets so busy, he gets another person to help him with the trades in exchange for a fixed amount?
If a person A, who already started a business, hires someone (Person B)to work for a fixed amount, than it is has to be only a share of what that person contributes. Otherwise, if the fixed amount is equal to contributing value of the person B, Person A would not gain anything and would not hire him in the first place. Ergo, from the value the worker, Person B, creates, Person A will take some funds for the development and maintenance of the production (material, rent, taxes etc.), and will keep a portion for himself. At that point, that is exploitation, because the Person B gets only a fraction of what he had earned due to the Person A.
Communists are a huge and diverse ideological group, therefore there are at least two different camps to this. Either you nationalize everything and run the economy from the planned position, therefore (through proxy), turning all companies into public property, or the other (my) camp, in which every worker who works at a business is, after a trial time, given the exactly same share as all other workers and has voting right in how the company is managed. Part of his pay still go for the maintenance and growth, but most goes to him as the owner of his own labor.
You missed the third camp. Anarcho-communists would hate both of these solutions.
Well then they do not get the benefits of society? Idk im not Communist but that seems like the best option to me
What keeps individuals from benefiting from society without contributing to it? Who determines appropriate contributions? I don’t know if you can do that in an anarchical framework
The community itself would make those decisions in a way that works for them. Us telling them in the future now from the past how to live their lives is tyrannical
Does the majority need to agree with the decisions? Or could the majority appoint people to make the decisions? Or could one person simply take charge and unilaterally make decisions as a dictator? Would any of those be acceptable?
How would the community make the decisions? Would everyone have to vote on every issue that appears?
The community themselves decide. If it’s enough of a problem, the community will organize to address it how they see fit. That’s the whole point of anarchism. We don’t have all the answers and we don’t claim to, the people that run into these issues will find the solutions that best suites their needs.
So does the community vote on everything then? If there are too many decisions, could they appoint someone to make some of the decisions on their behalf? Or does every little decision need to be voted on by everyone? If not, I don’t see how it’s different than democracy
Then so be it, but it seems like it would be beneficial to do so
I could go out in the woods right now and try to live on my own, but I’d have a much better time in a community with other people
If an individual wants to gain an individual benefit from their work instead of giving it to the community, what would prevent them from bartering for more personal good than they’d get otherwise?
Sharing one’s fruits with the community not only benefits the community itself, but the individual as well. This is anarcho-communism. I’m not the best person to describe it since I’m not that knowledgeable about politics, but I’d encourage you to read The Conquest of Bread, it’s actually a pretty straightforward read: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread
But why would some people not benefit more than average by bartering then by sharing? They would get benefit from both, but it seems like some people could get more benefit than the average community benefits through alternative channels, since not everyone will produce the exact same amount of value.
Than he/she keeps it. You just can’t keep others work…
I mean sure, but what we have now are people not sharing the fruits of other people’s labor. Your favorite billionaire did not earn that wealth through their own labor.
